


Staring at the Sun

by WhiteMizerable



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Addiction Discussions, Canonical Character Death, Depression Discussions, Drug Addiction, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 03:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteMizerable/pseuds/WhiteMizerable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Simon Monroe overdoses in the back of a club, he expects that to be the end. Instead, he wakes up in Limbo, and meets an otherworldly being called Amy who asks him a favor. Help a young attempted suicide decide whether to live or die, and he'll get what he wants most.</p>
<p>Simon figures that his three days in the young man's afterlife will be tiresome, emotional, and possibly way beyond anything he can help with. But he certainly doesn't expect Kieren Walker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staring at the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Two days after my posting date (oops), here is my fic for the In the Flesh Big Bang! It's been quite the journey.
> 
> Title stolen from MIKA. Story inspiration taken from "What Dreams May Come."
> 
> Not beta'd, all mistakes are my own.

The last things Simon remembered before the world went dark around him were the scrape and prick of the needle against his arm, the bright multicolored lights burning across his eyelids, the press of his thumb on the syringe, sweet, sweet release-

And then, nothing.

Well, perhaps not quite nothing. He could still feel himself. It was only the rest of the world that seemed to have disappeared, replaced with a deep, dark emptiness, an eternity of quiet, a cool, restful sense of peace. Even with his eyes closed, he felt the void lapping gently at his sides.

Death, thought Simon Monroe, was far more comfortable than he had been expecting.

“Death?” said a voice. “No, not yet, silly. I want to have a little talk with you, first.”

Simon opened his eyes and stared out at the darkness that was obviously not as empty as he’d believed. In front of him stood a figure. He was not sure what the figure stood on, as he felt nothing beneath his own feet. He was not even sure that the figure was human, in fact, what with their near-translucent skin, the vibrant swirls of color draping their form, the way the edges of their body seemed to blur into the darkness around them. And if they were not human, well…

“Are you an angel?” asked Simon.

The figure laughed. The sound echoed through the void, bright and chiming, clearer than any noise he had ever heard. “Maybe,” they said. “You can call me Amy.”

“Amy.” It didn’t sound like a fitting name for an angel, and with all his years of religious upbringing, Simon would have thought he’d had a firm grasp on angelic naming conventions, but he decided not to say so aloud. It wouldn’t do to argue with an angel, after all. “I’m Simon.”

“I know who you are, Simon Monroe,” said Amy. They smiled. “Do you really think I would come looking for you if I didn’t?”

Frowning, Simon looked around at the empty darkness surrounding them. “But there’s no one else here.” The words rang strange in his ears, though, and he hesitated. “Is there?”

Amy shrugged. “Of course there is. Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean there aren’t dozens more, waiting around just like you.” Their eyes narrowed and they shook one pale finger playfully in Simon’s face. “Now stop distracting me, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

So Simon waited quietly. In the midst of the void, with nothing else to look at or do, no matter what invisible creatures lurked beyond his sight, he had no other choice. Silently, rebelliously, he wished Amy would leave him to the silent restfulness of before. Hadn’t he suffered through enough unwanted noise and chatter in life?

“You’re not dead,” Amy said, voice tinged with affectionate exasperation. “I already said that.” They paused, all amusement fleeing from their features, and met Simon’s gaze with strange, bright eyes. “But if you don’t listen to me, someone else will be.”

That caught his attention. “What?”

“I came to ask for your help. There’s this boy. He’s young, and gorgeous, and very sad, and today he tried to kill himself.”

“Oh.” Sympathy- pity- burned sharp in Simon’s chest. He nodded slowly. “That’s too bad.” But he didn’t see what he could do about it. If the boy had died, he was dead, and that was the end of it. If he’d lived, there was still no way Simon could change anything, not with him still being dead. Amy was the angel, not him.

But Amy fixed him with a pointed stare. “He tried to kill himself. Whether he succeeded or not is up to you, now.”

“What?” Simon said again. “Then I want the kid to live. Give him another chance.”

Amy shook their head. “That’s not what I meant. I mean... Well, think of it like this. Outside of this place, he’s in hospital. The doctors are trying to resuscitate him.” Those unnatural white eyes drooped with sadness as they turned to look out into the darkness. “His mind’s not there, though. It’s here. He’s not dead, not yet, but they can’t bring him all the way back to life-”

“-because he wanted to die,” Simon finished quietly. He followed Amy’s gaze, staring at the void as if he could see the boy out there, if he just looked hard enough. Yet still, there was nothing more than empty black. The darkness no longer seemed as cool and relaxing, the dead air taking on a ghostly chill.

“Exactly,” said Amy. “He wanted to die. But now that he’s here, and actually thinking about it? He’s not so sure anymore.”

Simon frowned at them. “How do you know?”

“He’s lingering. He can’t decide which way he wants to go. This void- This isn’t what death looks like, you know.” At Simon’s confused look, Amy raised their eyebrows, a flicker of amusement returning to their expression. “What, you thought death was just empty darkness? How dull would that be? No, death is different for everyone. This place here, the void, is only the waiting area. Limbo. Most spirits move past it right away while they die. He’s already moved through here, too. Now he’s-”

“Wait,” Simon said. A cold hand of fear and guilt gripped his heart as he realized what he’d done- interrupting an angel!- but Amy showed no signs of offense, only curiosity, and he relaxed again. “Why am I not moving on, then? Aren’t I dying?”

“You are. You overdosed, and normally you would already be passing through, but I needed to ask you for this favor.” Amy smiled at him. “So, will you do it? Will you help him make his choice?”

The enormity of the request weighed heavy on Simon’s shoulders. To ask him to help this boy, whoever he was, decide whether to live or die- him, Simon, the addict, the failure? Surely it was a mistake. No one, angel or not, would lay so much responsibility at his feet. But when he looked at Amy, hoping to convey that, he saw only the glint of intelligence in their inhuman eyes, the conviction behind their choice, and something in their gaze had him straightening his spine and standing tall in the darkness. Perhaps it wasn’t a mistake, but a chance at redemption. After all, Amy had said they’d come looking for him in particular. If he could accomplish this, setting another soul on the right course and at peace, maybe it would make up for all the wrong decisions he had made over the course of his life.

“Yes,” he said.

The word rang like an oath in the blackness of the void. Amy’s smile widened. “I was hoping you’d say that.” Their expression grew slightly more somber, though the pride remained. “Now, unfortunately, Simon Monroe, you’re on a timer. The boy is dying, and if he doesn’t make his own choice fast enough, his body will do it for him.”

Simon nodded. “How long do I have?”

“In life? Five minutes, at most. But luckily for all of us, time works differently after you’ve started to pass. In death, you have about three days. If he hasn’t chosen what he wants by the end of the third, there’s nothing anyone can do.” Amy held out one hand, white fingers nearly glowing in the darkness. “Are you ready to get started?”

He reached out to touch them, then hesitated. “If I help him to choose, do I… Will I get to move on?” Asking felt sacrilegious, especially when he was being offered such a huge responsibility, but after everything he’d been through in his life, he needed to know.

Those pale eyes stared at him, twinkling with good humor, and Amy’s lips quirked up further. “Of course,” they said, voice light and amused once more. “Just help him pick, one way or the other, and you’ll get what you want.”

Nodding again, slowly- something in that promise seemed off, somehow, but he couldn’t quite figure out why- Simon clasped Amy’s offered hand. Instead of the coldness he expected, their skin was overwhelmingly hot, his fingers burning where they made contact. He flinched, making to draw back, but Amy did not let go. The hint of light around their form brightened, expanding outwards, growing stronger and stronger, until he had to throw his other arm up across his face to shield his eyes from its blinding force. Amy’s laughter rang like bells around him, coming from all sides, disembodied in the light.

And at once, everything stopped. Even the pulsing warmth of Amy’s hand in his own vanished, replaced by a gentle breeze that brushed along his fingers. Lowering his arm slowly, he blinked away the spots of color dancing across his vision and looked around.

The empty void was gone. Instead, he found himself standing alone in the middle of a grassy field, surrounded by gently rolling hills. High above, a warm sun shone down, barely impeded by the few clouds in the blue sky. In the distance, he could hear the cries of gulls.

It would have been beautiful, had it not been for the decay creeping insidiously through it all. The grass wilted and browned as Simon watched, a wave of dead brown sliding down the hill before him and beneath his feet. The music of the birds was lost beneath a torrent of clicks and snaps, and he jumped backwards as the decomposing grass exploded with hundreds of hard, oversized carapaces, insects churning up out of the dull earth to rip and tear at what little life was left in the ground. Even the breeze, cool and playful as it was, began to carry with it the cloyingly sweet smell of rot.

Simon stared at it all, eyes wide. This was the boy’s afterlife? It seemed so hopeless, so wrecked. He would have expected it to be a bit more cheerful, even if the kid had tried to kill himself.

“It was,” Amy’s voice whispered, a musical sigh in the wind. Simon glanced around, but he was still alone. “But now it’s dying, because he isn’t sure what he wants, and he hates himself for his indecision.”

The words struck a discomfortingly familiar chord within Simon. He scratched at his arm, a gesture that came second nature despite death having removed the constant itch from his needle scars, and wondered what his own personal death world would look like. Would it be as ruined as this one, after all he’d done to destroy himself? He pushed the thought away. “How will I find him?” he asked the air, stepping gingerly aside as a massive centipede tried to crawl over his boot.

Amy laughed. The breeze buffeted the sound around Simon’s ears. “He knows you’re here. This is his world, after all. Just walk. You’ll find him.” Their voice faded off, and Simon thought himself alone again, but then one last chime swirled against his ear. “His name is Kieren.”

“Kieren,” Simon repeated, once it became clear that Amy was not going to say anything else. He looked down at his boots again, at the flood of insects writhing on the ground around them, and sighed. Casting a longing look over his shoulder at the still-green grass in the near distance- though he knew it wouldn’t stay green for long, not with the brown wave of death devouring it little by little- he started off towards the heart of the decay. If this was emanating from Kieren’s self-hatred, he doubted he would find the boy out in the untouched green.

He walked. Without a watch, or any real idea of how time passed in Kieren’s death, he soon lost track of it, only partially aware of the sun slowly moving through the sky overhead. Most of his unwilling attention was caught by the rhythmic, sickening crunch and hiss of bugs beneath his feet. The foul, rotten sweetness permeating the air thickened with every step as well. He could only hope that he came across Kieren soon, before it all overwhelmed him completely. A sly little voice in the back of his mind whispered that it might have been easier if he had a syringe in hand. He ignored it as best he could.

Perhaps Amy took pity on him, or perhaps it was Kieren himself, for just before he reached his breaking point, Simon crested another rolling hill and looked down into a sudden, deep valley. He paused at the rim. The land was still brown, still roiling with thousands of insects, but it was no longer otherwise empty, and he was no longer alone. 

In the middle of the valley stood a tree. It was as dead and dull as the world around it, its long, thin branches drooping downwards, barren of any leaves or flowers, and from where he stood, Simon could see the bark peeling away from the rotting core. What truly drew his gaze, though, was the split in the center of the tree, where it curved upwards in two sickly sections. Tucked up in the divide, knees curled tight to skinny chest, sat a human figure. Simon could feel a baleful stare burning holes into his head even with the distance between them. He let out a sigh and started moving down into the valley, his boots resuming their harmony of crunching bug sounds. He couldn’t turn back now.

When he was about halfway down, the figure in the tree seemed to give up the waiting game. They- well, he, Simon thought, as he doubted a being like Amy would get Kieren’s gender wrong- were much taller than he’d expected, lankier, with broader shoulders. But obviously Amy had been toying with him when she called Kieren a boy, and Simon quickly reshuffled his thoughts on the whole situation. There was no child here trying to end their life- there was a young man. A young man who was distinctly unhappy about how that was working out, by the looks of things.

The tense silence did not last much longer, just enough for Simon to get within easy hearing distance. “So you’re the one Amy sent to talk to me?” Kieren asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Simon raised his brows as he moved closer in to the thick roots of the tree, carefully stepping over a centipede that must have been at least the length of his foot. “You don’t sound too excited.”

“I’m not.” Kieren’s scowl deepened. “I slit my own wrists. I did it in the middle of the woods, so no one would find me. I think I know how and when I want to die, thanks.”

His tone was quiet and fierce, intensely certain of himself, and had Simon been going on that alone, he might have been convinced. But as it was, Simon’s gaze slid down instead to Kieren’s hands where they clenched tight in the sleeves of his hoodie. Kieren’s knuckles stood out stark white with the force of his grip, and even partially concealed by the fabric, Simon saw them trembling. He let his gaze slip further down to the split in the tree. Right at the points where Kieren’s boots touched it, the bark was black with rot, so dark and sludgy that, had they been truly alive, it would never have been able to hold a young man’s weight without collapsing.

“I can’t say I’m convinced,” Simon said.

Kieren bristled. The tree around him groaned ominously, empty branches creaking in the breeze. “Oh, really?” he asked. Something with far too many clicking legs wound around Simon’s ankle, holding him still. “Why not?”

Forcing himself not to look down, Simon gave a careless shrug. “This place is a mess. Is this really where you want to spend eternity? You strike me as more of the green grass and flowers type, not mud and bugs.”

“How would you know?” But the fierce light in Kieren’s eyes wavered, and his hands unclenched in his hoodie, just a bit. “What if I love bugs and want them everywhere?”

“Then I’d offer this one back to you,” said Simon, gesturing down at the creature wrapped around his leg while still carefully not looking at it. “Surely an insect lover like yourself wouldn’t want to give away a specimen this massive?”

The corner of Kieren’s lips quirked upwards. “You haven’t even looked at it, you arse.” He struggled to maintain his anger, his face twitching as he tried to pull his expression back into neutral again, then abruptly gave up with a sigh. He looked much younger without the furious tension lining his face. Shoulders slumping, he leaned heavily against one half of the divided tree. The bark beneath his shoulder immediately began to shrivel and blacken. Like this, Simon could see the weariness hanging heavy around him.

Silence reigned between them for a long moment, broken only by the eerie clicking of the bugs still churning around their feet, before Kieren sighed again. “What are you doing here?” he asked. His eyes were wide and soft and sad. “What do you want from me?”

Simon took a tentative step forward and was relieved to find that the insect holding him back was gone. He extended his hands, open and empty, the simplest gesture of goodwill he could offer. “I only want to help you, if I can.”

“With what?” Kieren said. The anger was gone from his voice, but it still held an unhappy bite. “I’m dead. I killed myself, I wanted to die, and now I’ve got some angel or whatever sending me people to convince me that I’m just confused and that I don’t know what I want, and that I have to decide whether or not I want to die all over again!” The words rushed out in a nearly incoherent muddle, and his lips tightened, brow furrowing. “I thought I was done with everyone second-guessing me all the time.”

Now that, Simon thought, was a sentiment he could understand. “I suppose death isn’t as black and white as we’ve been led to believe.” He walked up to the side of the tree and rested one hand against the rotten bark. It threatened to give away beneath the slightest pressure of his fingers. “Like this tree, I’d assume,” he added, looking up at where Kieren stood in the split trunk above him. “I doubt it looked this forlorn when you first arrived.”

Frowning, Kieren crouched down to run his hand along the blackened bark just beneath his feet. The sickly rot spread even further down the tree, and he yanked his hand away again. “It was beautiful when I got here,” he said quietly, cradling his hands against his chest. “But every time I touch something, it dies. It rots away, just like this. And even when I’m not touching anything, the sickness spreads, eating up everything in its path.” He shot Simon a forced smile. “You would think my own afterlife would want me around, but I guess I can’t even get that, huh?”

“Kieren.” Simon reached up to clasp the young man’s hands in his own. He wasn’t surprised when Kieren immediately flinched and pulled away. “All I know about you is what Amy told me. But I don’t believe this is happening because your afterlife doesn’t want you.” He looked around at the sea of roiling insects and dead grass. “I would go with the opposite, actually.”

“You think I don’t want it,” Kieren said dryly. The soles of his boots scuffed along the bark, and Simon looked up in time to see him clamber further up along the left trunk, stopping just out of arm’s reach. “So you’re just here to tell me to choose life this time, right? That this is my second chance, and I’d be a fool not to take it?” Some of the defensive anger from before began to color his voice again. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I think I might be a bit of a fool, and you’re wasting your time with me.”

For a moment, Simon contemplated trying to follow Kieren up the tree. The worrying groan of dead wood quickly put that thought out of his mind, though, and he scratched subconsciously at his arm as he stared up at the young man hidden away in the mess of drooping branches. He wasn’t suited for this kind of task. Why had Amy laid it on his shoulders, out of all the dying souls they could have chosen? But the promise of redemption shone temptingly before him, just out of reach, and he squared his shoulders, determined to at least see the three days through.

“Kieren,” he tried again, “that’s not what I meant.” The only sign that his companion heard him was the slightest rustling of branches up above. “I wasn’t sent here to send you back or save you. All I want to do is help you decide, no matter what decision you make. If you truly want death, I am not going to take that away from you, I swear.” He stepped back, ignoring the sound of bugs crunching beneath his feet, and spread his arms wide. “What do you want? Let me help you get it.”

There was silence. Then, right when Simon began to think that Kieren might have fallen asleep up there, the branches parted to reveal a pale face and narrowed eyes. “Alright, first off, who are you?” Kieren demanded.

Simon shrugged. “Simon. Just Simon.”

“Well, Simon, just Simon, what do you suggest I do, since I apparently don’t want to die enough?” One of Kieren’s legs slid off the branch as he readjusted himself, his foot dangling down into open air, close enough for Simon to touch. “I’m not finding myself fond of destroying everything I touch here.”

A smile pulled unbidden at the corner of Simon’s lips. “The first step, I suppose,” he said, turning around to stare out at the dead hills all around them, “is rebuilding.”

He could practically hear Kieren rolling his eyes. “How incredibly helpful, thank you. I would never have thought of something like that. Did Amy pick you out at random? I really don’t think you’re the best for this job.”

Seeing as he had just been thinking the same thing, Simon couldn’t help but chuckle lightly. “I’m afraid so. I don’t have any qualifications to be helping the dead. I’m just a man, like you.”

“So you’re dead, too, then.” The branches rustled again, and Simon looked up to see Kieren lying down along a flat stretch of bark that had not been there a few minutes before. “Or almost dead, at the very least. Why haven’t you moved on yet? You must have your own afterlife to go to.”

Simon hesitated. Telling the truth about himself was not something he had been very used to doing in life, and starting a new precedent in death seemed strange, but in the face of the responsibility he’d accepted, it felt wrong to lie. He stayed quiet as he warred with himself, not even realizing that he’d begun scratching at his arm again until he noticed Kieren’s gaze following the movement. There was curiosity in those dark eyes, obvious but unspoken, and an innocence that seemed out of place in a boy who was so determined to end his own life. 

It was that innocence that made up Simon’s mind for him. He grasped at the end of one sleeve and quickly pulled it up, not allowing himself time to hesitate any further. He kept his gaze fixed firmly on his own skin as it was revealed, the pattern of track marks littering the area around the crook of his elbow, the collapsed blood vessels and various scars. It all looked cleaner in death, as if some kind being had airbrushed over the worst of his sins without quite erasing them. He wondered if it was Amy. After a moment of staring at his arm, he looked back up at the still-silent Kieren, and saw that those wide eyes were even wider now, pale lips parted in muted shock.  
“I overdosed,” Simon said plainly. They were both dead, or nearly so- why bother mincing words? “I was an addict for years, and I finally overdid it. And I have done some terrible things in my life, Kieren, things that should stop me from having any sort of afterlife at all. But Amy came to me with a request, and-”

“-and you said yes.” Kieren’s eyes were bright as they met Simon’s again. “You’re hoping this will redeem you. That’s why you’re here. This is your second chance. Trying to help me.” He huffed out an incredulous laugh. “Wow, Amy didn’t let you off easy, huh?”

“It could be worse.”

“Yeah, but it could also be a lot better. I’m not the easiest person to deal with.” Letting out another laugh, humorless, he sat up in his tree and peered down at Simon with an unreadable expression, brows furrowed, lips thinned, eyes narrowed, but no trace of anger or despair. Then his features relaxed, smoothed out into neutral calm again, as if some deep decision had been made. Slowly, though without any sign of reluctance, he pulled up one of the sleeves of his hoodie.

Knowing what to expect still did not prepare Simon for the sight of it, even glossed over and airbrushed as it was in death. The long scar ran from the base of Kieren’s palm almost all the way to his elbow, a deep gouge that carved not-quite-straight down through his skin. Simon could imagine how it must have looked as it happened, blood oozing out of the torn flesh, Kieren’s other hand trembling with pain as he held the blade. He imagined that it must have hurt, cutting so deep. He wondered how Amy could wonder if Kieren truly wanted to die. Then he looked up at Kieren’s eyes again, saw the innocence lurking in their depths, and supposed that he could understand, just a little.

“This was the cleaner one,” Kieren said after a minute. “The other one was harder. Cutting your wrists damages mobility in your fingers, you know?” He smiled, but the expression was tight, pained, and Simon didn’t smile back. Silence fell between them again, the sound of clicking bugs filling the air.

Finally, when the quiet was becoming too uncomfortable for even Simon to handle, Kieren broke it with a quiet but decisive noise. “Well,” he said, and reached towards the hem of his sleeve as if to tug it back down again. He paused before his fingers touched it, though, and looked down at Simon, who stared coolly back. Kieren swallowed, closed his eyes, and grabbed his other sleeve, pushing it up to expose the scar on that arm as well. It was far more jagged than the first, and not quite as long. When Kieren opened his eyes again, they were sharp, daring Simon to comment.

All Simon did was roll up his other sleeve as well. It felt strange, revealing the proof of his addiction to the open air, but at the same time, a weight seemed lifted off his shoulders. He smiled faintly. “Everyone has their scars.”

Kieren smiled back. It was still brittle, too guarded, but it fit more naturally on his lips than before. He rested his arms on his knees, wrists upturned, scars bared to the world, and the bark where he sat began to shift, vibrant browns curling into and overtaking the edges of the blackened rot. Tiny green buds pushed their way out of the branches closest to him.

“Well,” he said again, “I don’t want to be redeemed, Simon. I knew what I was getting into, I killed myself, I’m not taking it back. Don’t think you can save my soul or whatever. I’m not something you can fix. I just…” He paused and looked past Simon, at the bugs and the dead grass, the fields of decay. “I think I would like it to be beautiful around here again. Apparently I’m not that much of a bug person after all.”

“Understandable,” Simon said, his gaze held fast to the one little green leaf blossoming out next to Kieren’s hip, the tip uncurling as if desperately trying to touch him.  
Kieren snorted, oblivious to what was happening at his side. “I’m trying to say that I want to rebuild. But how am I supposed to rebuild a dead tree? It’s not as if I can grab a hammer and nails for this kind of thing.”

Except that Simon was no longer quite so sure that the tree was dead after all. The little leaf glinted in the sunlight, a tiny beacon of hope. Kieren’s hope, maybe. Simon pressed both hands against the tree, ignoring the mushy feeling of rotten bark beneath his fingers as he focused. He could almost feel a pulse, he thought, the faint rhythm of life hidden away deep within. If he was right, and he hoped he was, all it needed was for Kieren to draw it back out again. “How did it look before this happened?” he asked, glancing up in Kieren’s direction.

“Like a painting, I suppose.” When Simon’s expression did not change, Kieren pulled a face. “Fine. There were leaves, big green ones, growing all over the branches, and flowers, too. Purple and pink ones, the kind that hang down, that butterflies like, you know?” He studied one of the bare branches growing above his head. “The bark was brighter than this, too. It looked sort of like brush strokes at first.”

That was something to work with. “You were an artist?”

“Yeah,” Kieren said. “I was alright, I guess. This tree… It’s one of those things I always wanted to paint.” He paused, the corners of his lips curving downwards. “I suppose it’s too late for that now.” His fingers twitched towards the hem of one sleeve, as if trying to pull it down, before he met Simon’s eyes and stopped. His hand fell limply against his leg again.

“No,” said Simon, shaking his head. An idea was beginning to form in his mind- a crazy, ridiculous idea that would never have worked in life. The laws of death had already proven themselves to be different, though, and all he could do was hope that they would keep on fluctuating for Kieren’s sake. “I think now would be the perfect time to paint it.”

Kieren stared at him. “Paint it now? With what? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, Simon, but we are in the middle of a field. There’s not exactly a stockpile of paper and paintbrushes lying around, unless you think the bugs are hiding something here.”

“Are you sure you need them?” Simon took a long look at all the decay around them before turning back to Kieren, eyebrows raised. “This is your death. You killed everything here when you touched it. Surely you must be able to fix it all, too.”

The stare became even more incredulous. “So, what, you think I can paint it better with my, I don’t know, magic fingers? Wiggle them around and make everything perfect again?” Kieren waved both hands in demonstration, brushing one across a drooping branch beside him. “I can’t just-” He cut himself off with a sharp intake of breath, eyes wide and hands stilling midair.

The branch was blooming. The bark brightened and firmed, the black rot sliding away, and all along its length, small green buds popped up into the light. As Simon and Kieren watched, the buds unfurled, green leaves sliding out and growing, growing, until they were at least the size of Kieren’s outstretched hand. They were dappled with color, brilliant green but flecked with sparkling paint of every hue, and they rustled gently, merrily, in the breeze.

“Oh,” Kieren breathed. He lifted his hands to his face and stared at them wonderingly, as if maybe they had changed since he last looked. “No way.” He looked down at Simon. “I just did that, didn’t I?”

Simon nodded, allowing a hint of amusement into his expression while holding back all of the relief. If that hadn’t worked, he would have had no idea what to do next.  
But Kieren was hardly paying him any attention anyway, too busy gaping at his own hands. Slowly, uncertainly, he reached out again and ran his fingers down the length of another lifeless branch, and drew in a quiet gasp as more leaves burst into being in their wake. “I’m doing this. I’m- I’m bringing it all back to life. I…” His lips curved upwards into a wide, helpless grin. It was the first completely honest emotion that Simon had seen cross his face. “This is sort of like finger-painting, isn’t it? Finger-painting with magic fingers.”

With all the excitement of a child, Kieren scrambled up from his seat on the tree, his hands touching everything they could, moving from branch to branch. Leaves blossomed all around him, and within moments he was hidden from Simon’s sight. Not for long, though- the fresh new greenery rustled as Kieren slid down to the curve of the tree’s split trunk, his pale face flushed with pleasure. Where his boots passed over the bark, new branches began to grow, curling up and out and already heavy with budding leaves, and where his hands rested as he balanced himself, the bark healed and grew vibrant, taking on the pattern of swirling brushstrokes. The smell of fresh greens wafted through the air.

“Looks like it’s working,” Simon said, voice neutral. Kieren just rolled his eyes, still smiling, and clambered up the other half of the tree. New life followed at his heels.  
Simon took one step back, then another, ignoring the bugs beneath his feet as he shielded his eyes from the sun and peered up at the rebirth happening before him. From this vantage point, he could no longer see Kieren, not with all the new branches and leaves filling out the tree’s scraggly form, but he could certainly follow the young man’s path through the boughs. Higher and higher the new leaves grew, climbing up and up- Simon tilted his head further back- until, finally, no dead, drooping twigs remained at all. Everything was fresh and bright, thrumming with life. Even the gap between the two trunks brimmed with interlacing branches, curving out and up as if to form the high back of a throne.

It was, just as Kieren had said, absolutely beautiful.

The loud crunch of boots landing on bugs signaled that Kieren had joined him on the ground, but Simon kept his gaze on the tree until the subsequent crunches announced Kieren’s move to stand beside him. He glanced over- not down, for Kieren, as it turned out, was nearly the same height- to find Kieren narrowing his eyes at the image he’d just created. Simon raised a curious brow.

“It’s missing something,” Kieren said simply. He stared at the mass of paint-flecked green for a moment longer before his lips quirked upwards again. Reaching out, he stepped forward just far enough to cup the nearest leaf between his palms. He hunched his shoulders over it, bent his head down, blocking out Simon’s line of sight. Then he let it go, unchanged, and glanced back at Simon. “Watch this.” Mouth still crooked in that shadow of a smile, he raised his hands.

The tree exploded with color. Pink and purple blossoms sprang to life along the branches, popping out between the leaves, hanging down in gentle cascades of petals. Their pale yellow centers nearly glowed in the sunlight. Clean sweetness permeated the air and overtook the smell of rotten decay. Simon touched the nearest bloom, running his fingers over the large, silky petals, and was not surprised to see that its violet color was made up of swathes of different hues, as if swirled together by a thick paintbrush.

“So this is what it’s supposed to look like?”

“Yeah,” said Kieren. He frowned. “Or, well, almost.”

Following his gaze, Simon looked down at the mass of bugs still writhing around their feet. Yes, he supposed those were not a flattering addition to Kieren’s décor. He nudged at a massive beetle with the toe of one boot. It chittered and rolled away.

Beside him, Kieren stood in silence, lips pressed tight together as he thought. Then his expression cleared. Without a word, he crouched low to the ground and gently scooped up the beetle. It clattered across his pale hands, but he didn’t move, not so much as a twitch of a finger, too entranced by the creature and his own private thoughts. Simon glanced between the bug and Kieren’s face, and when no answers were forthcoming, he focused on Kieren, searching those features for some clue of what would come next. Like this, it was easy to see Kieren as the artist he was- the devotion, the unwavering focus, the gentle hands.

Simon wondered why he wanted to die. He hadn’t known Kieren long, certainly not long enough to have a full grasp of the young man’s psyche, but even he could tell that there was something more to all of this, something- or many somethings- that Kieren was keeping hidden away. He wished he understood exactly what Amy wanted him to do here. He wished he knew what Kieren wanted.

But he did not have long to think it over, for Kieren abruptly released a sigh, sharp and restless, rubbed this thumbs down over the muddy brown of the beetle’s carapace, and threw the bug up into the air.

A hurricane of blues and purples whirled up around them. Simon instinctively raised his arms to protect his face, but Kieren grabbed his wrist before he could cover his eyes. “Wait,” Kieren said. “Look.” So Simon, with a moment’s hesitation, did.

They were butterflies. Hundreds and hundreds of butterflies, spiraling up into the sky. They rose up from the ravaged ground, not just in the valley where the tree grew, but from far beyond Simon’s line of sight, out across the rolling hills and fields, and soared in a brilliant cloud of color. The air reverberated with the deafening sound of their wings, and the sunlight sparkled across their bodies. The wind buffeting around them smelled of sweet flowers and wet paint.

Pulling his gaze away from the spectacle of glittering wings- a difficult feat, given the majesty of it all- Simon looked at the young man by his side. Kieren stood staring upwards at the storm of butterflies, his head tilted back and his long neck exposed. The winds pulled at his hoodie, tugging it around his thin frame, and in that moment, he looked very young and fragile. His scars stood out long and jagged against the skin of his wrists.

After a few seconds of staring, Kieren tilted his head back down and turned to face him, brow furrowed. “What?”

Simon shrugged. “Incredible,” he said. A butterfly brushed gently across his cheek as it took flight. “This is incredible, Kieren.”

Kieren made a face. “Stop.” The open emotion from before was gone, replaced with the careful, guarded look again. It didn’t suit him, Simon thought. But there was nothing he could do about it, not right then.

They stood quietly together as the rest of the butterflies flew off, the swirl of blue and purple dispersing out into the sky. Without the sound of wings to disguise it, the silence felt weighed heavy in the air. Kieren shoved his hands deep into his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and turned away from both Simon and the tree, heading up the soft slope of the valley. Simon took one more look around, at the tree in full bloom, at the grass now freshly green and springy beneath his feet, and followed after him.

The sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon ahead as they walked up out of the valley, reds and pinks and golds painting streaks across the darkening blue sky. Kieren hunched his shoulders slightly as he looked at it, though he did not break his step. “It’s almost the end of day one,” he said without glancing back at Simon. “Two more days and you can head right on off to whatever afterlife you’ve earned and leave me the hell alone. That’ll be nice, yeah?”

There was something off about his voice, an emotion that didn’t sound quite right, and Simon picked up his pace just a bit in order to walk alongside him. “You could always just tell me to leave now.”

Kieren’s steps faltered. He glanced quickly over at Simon, but looked away before their eyes could meet. “I didn’t think you would listen if I did.”

With a shrug, Simon adjusted his step to match again. Kieren was correct, of course- even if he’d wanted to, and had no reason to stay, he had no idea how he would go about leaving Kieren’s death- but there was no need to say so out loud. “Do you want me to go?”

“No, you can stay,” said Kieren brusquely, still looking away. “I mean, I guess you can. I don’t want you to miss out on your chance for redemption or anything.”

It seemed he was wanted after all. Simon nodded and kept on moving, keeping his relief hidden away behind his practiced indifference. At least the staying with Kieren part of his assignment would be simple enough.

The rolling fields seemed to go on forever beneath their feet, extending unbroken in all directions no matter how far they walked. The sun dipped down to the horizon and began to pass beneath it, and long violet shadows stretched out across the grass. Everything was cool and calm and peaceful. This was the sort of relaxation Simon had imagined a good death to be.

Beside him, Kieren fidgeted. He scratched at his exposed forearms, rubbed his rolled-up sleeves without quite pulling them down, bit his lip, tugged at the strings of his hoodie. He did not slow or stumble, but obviously something about their trek left him uncomfortable. Simon was starting to suspect that these never-ending fields were another symptom of Kieren’s indecisiveness. Walking forever yet going nowhere- a bit of poetic justice, unnecessary perhaps, but still pointedly accurate.

As if he’d heard the thought, Kieren looked over to meet his eyes without breaking pace. “You know,” he said, “if you want me to pick life at the end of all this, that whole thing back there didn’t really help. Flowers and butterflies and- what, if I wiggle my fingers just right, I can literally change the world. How could my life be worth giving up this place?”

“Maybe so,” said Simon, not bothering to correct Kieren’s assumption. He took a long look around them, at the beautiful but empty fields and darkening sky. “It seems a little bare to me.”

Kieren’s brow furrowed. “Well, I can change that. I just need to…” He stopped walking, rubbed his hands together, and crouched down low to the ground. His fingers trailed along the blades of grass.

Nothing happened.

“That’s not-” Frown deepening, Kieren ran his hands more firmly across the grass. Still nothing. Simon raised his brows and Kieren bristled. “That doesn’t mean anything. I just- I did something wrong, that’s all.” He shoved his hands, palms flat, into the grass. Several blades broke beneath the force of it, and he winced, but beyond that, nothing changed. No matter how much he wiggled his fingers or patted the ground or brushed light touches along the green curves, the fields stayed vibrant and empty.

Finally, with a growl of displeasure, Kieren pushed himself back upright and shoved his hands into his hair, pulling harshly at the ginger strands as he breathed out sharp puffs of air through his nose. “I don’t- What’s wrong? What am I doing differently?” He twisted around, turning his back to Simon, but the tremors running through his frame were obvious even with his baggy hoodie. “I don’t get it! Nothing changed. I haven’t-”

“Nothing?” Simon interrupted quietly. He certainly saw a difference. “Nothing has changed at all?”

Glancing back at him over his shoulder, Kieren narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?” He followed Simon’s gaze to one of his exposed forearms, and his expression twisted into a mask of overdramatic, irritated disbelief. “You must be joking. Are you honestly suggesting that me showing you my scars let me fix that tree? That death is some sort of kindergarten show and tell bullshit? I don’t believe it.”

Simon shrugged. He seemed to do that a lot around Kieren, he realized. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Kieren wanted to say yes. The desire was obvious upon his face, even without spoken words. But then his fierce expression crumpled. “No,” he admitted. “What am I supposed to do, then? Tell you all my deep, dark secrets? I don’t think I like that plan.”

In all honesty, neither did Simon. Showing scars was one thing, but this? Kieren seemed like an interesting person, and in other circumstances he might have enjoyed learning about what lurked behind the doe-eyed facade, but right then, with both of their afterlives hanging in the balance, Simon was much more focused on maintaining Kieren’s willingness to participate at all. He doubted forced soul-sharing would do anything to help with the boy’s indecisiveness. His own multiple, failed attempts at therapy had long ago proved that.

But maybe… “It doesn’t have to be deep and dark,” he said, attempting to sound surer of this whole business than he really was. “Why not start with the small things? Tell me about yourself, Kieren.”

Kieren arched his brows. “And you’ll reciprocate?” When Simon nodded, he huffed out a harsh laugh. “What is this, speed dating?” He held Simon’s gaze for a moment before sighing and pressing the heels of his palms over his eyes. “Just- Fine. Fine, whatever. What do you want to know?” The words came out strained, forced between gritted teeth.

Simon thought about it for a moment. “Something basic. How about your family?” It was a risk, he knew- many of the suicides he had heard about over the years had involved unhappy families, and he supposed he had first-hand experience- but the sun was setting, the sky above them empty and black, and he had no time to hem and haw over a decision. This was his only chance at redemption and he could not afford to screw it up.

“My family? Right.” Kieren huffed out a not-quite-laugh. “There’s- there was mum and dad, my sister Jem, and me. Nothing exciting.”

But Simon could hear the raw edge in his voice. “Nothing?” he said, and watched Kieren flinch ever so slightly. “All right, then, tell me more about your boring family. I want to hear about them.”

Kieren shot him an uncomfortable look. “There isn’t anything to tell, alright? We are- we were just an average, everyday, boring family.”

“An average, everyday family?” Simon asked, and found himself unable to keep the wry, self-deprecating tone out of his words. “I’d be very curious to hear about one of those.”

“Oh,” said Kieren. His eyes were wide and dark and soft with understanding. His gaze held no pity, honest in his simple sympathy, and maybe that surprising openness was what loosened Simon’s tongue.

“My mother is dead,” Simon said, wondering what he was doing even as the words left his mouth. He never spoke about this. Never. But the words kept coming. “It was my fault. My father hates me for it.”

Sympathetic understanding bled into horrified confusion in Kieren’s expression. “Why?”

And there was the familiar guilt, cold and oily, deep in his belly. Simon shrugged as casually as he could manage. “I made a choice,” he said quietly, “and she paid for it.” Unwillingly, his gaze dropped to the track marks on his arms. He felt Kieren follow the look.

“Oh,” Kieren said again. But there was still no pity in his gaze.

A strangely comfortable silence fell between them, despite the guilt still gnawing at Simon’s insides. The two of them walked on through the empty fields beneath the empty sky.

“My sister.” The words were soft, halting. Simon glanced over and found Kieren staring resolutely down at the grass disappearing beneath his moving feet. “Jem. I- She’s the one I’ll miss the most, I think.”

Simon made a quiet sound of interest. It wasn’t just out of a sense of duty to his appointed task, either- he found himself sincerely interested in whatever it was Kieren had to say. Something about the man just drew him in. Perhaps, he thought for the first time, Amy had not chosen him randomly after all.

The breeze laughed as it brushed past his ears.

“When we were kids,” Kieren went on, still hesitant but with a new note of surety, “she was really shy. I mean, really shy. But I knew there was more to her. And I’m her big brother, I had to support her, right, so I made her this mix CD-” he shot Simon a look, daring him to comment, and Simon wisely said nothing- “and filled it with metal. Heavy, screaming, head-banging metal.” He smiled, small and shy but honest. “She never stopped listening to it. Drove our parents crazy. But she was so happy, and- I think it was good for her. I hope so, at least.”

“You miss her already,” Simon said.

Kieren’s shoulders hunched, but not fully, and his steps slowed to a shuffle, his posture looking ridiculous and unsure, halfway to defensive. “I suppose,” he said finally. “That doesn’t mean I regret dying.”

With a shrug, Simon stared at that pale, downturned face. “Never said you did.”

Cold, uncomfortable silence. Then-

“She’ll never forgive me,” Kieren blurted. His eyes widened, as if he was surprised to hear his own voice, but the words kept tumbling out even as his steps froze. “Whether I survive or not, she’ll never forgive me for trying. She’ll hate me forever.”

Kieren looked like a frightened deer, all huge eyes and awkward angles, ready to bolt at the slightest sound. Anyone else might have reached out to hug him. But by the time Simon mustered up the courage to try, one hand reaching forward, it was too late. The moment was gone, and Kieren was looking away again. Breathing out a quiet sigh, Simon let both his hand and his gaze drop.

And immediately raised both again, his fingers brushing lightly against the back of Kieren’s lower arm before he pulled himself back. “Kieren. Look.”

“What? I’m not-” Kieren’s voice cut off with a gasp.

Around his feet grew wildflowers. They were tiny, white, and clustered together like stars, shining out of the dark expanse of field. And though they filled only the grass right alongside his boots, miniscule buds bunched hopefully around the edges of the blooms, just waiting for their turn.

Simon met Kieren’s gaze, and the boy gave him a slow, somewhat pained smile. “I guess sharing is caring after all.”

“Looks that way.” Simon crouched down, running the tips of his fingers delicately across the little petals. Amazing, he thought. Absolutely beautiful.

“I’m gay,” Kieren said suddenly. Simon sat back on his heels and stared up at him, eyebrows raised, and Kieren stumbled onwards. “I mean, not gay, gay, I like girls, but- Not straight, either. I’m not straight. I like girls and boys.” The last words came out high and a little frantic, more a question than a statement, and his pale cheeks warmed with a blotchy pink blush.

Simon waited a moment, but nothing more seemed forthcoming. “Alright,” he said, slow and steady. It felt as though he was trying to avoid spooking a wild animal, and a very jumpy, confusing wild animal at that. “So do I- well, boys, at least. What does that have to do with anything?” Then an insidious little thought occurred to him. “Or is that the reason you killed yourself?”

Kieren scowled. “No,” he said, but there was still a heat in his cheeks and a fluster in his voice that clearly stated he was not quite telling the entire truth. “I just- Sharing is caring, right? And you got down like that, and it’s like- I wasn’t- I was just saying. That’s all.”

So it wasn’t all innocence behind those doe eyes after all. Simon favored him with a wry look, accepting Kieren’s obvious desire to let his question drop, and Kieren blushed even brighter. “Shut up. It wasn’t because- You’re not even my type.”

Simon chuckled, shaking his head and turning his gaze back down to the little blooms around Kieren’s feet. Several of the buds had begun to unfurl, pinpricks of white in the darkness. Even as he watched, more started to bloom, buds slowly growing from their stalks and opening to the night air. A ghost of a smile touched his lips at the sight.

After a few seconds, Kieren joined him, crouching down, his hands hovering just above the wildflowers. Simon looked up just in time to see him close his eyes, and watched Kieren’s narrow chest rise and fall with a deep breath beneath his baggy hoodie. Then, almost hesitant, he touched the tips of his fingers to a patch of empty grass.

The darkness burst with light. The little garden of flowers where they stood spiraled outwards, waves upon waves of wildflowers spinning out across the grass. The petals were delicate but uneven, each one a minuscule streak of paint. They glowed in the shadows, pale lights in the emptiness, and they didn’t stop, moving further and further out until even the dark shapes of hills in the far distance were alit. Kieren took another deep breath, and the breeze picked up, ruffling at the tiny flowers and lifting loose petals into the air. Still glowing, they swirled up into the flat black sky.

“Is this another painting of yours?” Simon asked quietly. Loud noise seemed inappropriate in the middle of such a beautiful spectacle.

Kieren nodded. “Something I was going to make for Jem. I was-” He paused, and Simon followed his gaze up to the sky. “It’s not done. The sky was not supposed to be empty.”

With a shrug, Simon lifted himself back to his feet, and, after a moment of hesitation, offered a hand to help Kieren do the same. “So finish it.”

White petals spun and danced around them as Kieren looked up at him, still crouched down, silent. Finally, he murmured, “I’m not sure I can reach all the way to the sky.”

Simon’s hand remained outstretched, unwavering. “That’s why I’m here to help.”

A beat, and then Kieren reached out, and his fingers were cool against Simon’s skin, his pallor heightened by the glow of the flowers below, and though it was obvious that death clung to his heels, he also seemed soft, ethereal in the night. Simon grasped his hand tight and pulled him to his feet. Kieren’s eyes glimmered in the low light. They were both slow to pull their hands apart.

“How are we going to do this?” asked Kieren. He looked away from Simon, back up at the sky. “How am I supposed to put anything up there?”

“Why not fly?” When Kieren made a face at him, Simon merely shrugged, not letting any of his amusement show. “It was only a suggestion.” He cocked his head to one side and stared up at the darkness. Honestly, he was sure that Kieren could simply will his perfect night sky into being if he wanted, but then again, his heart was so obviously muddled, mired in indecision. Some kind of helping hand was more than warranted.

Or, perhaps, a pair of shoulders.

Dropping down to one knee, Simon looked up into Kieren’s wide, shocked eyes, at the surprised o of his parted lips. He patted his own shoulder lightly. “Well, come on, then.”

Kieren let out a shaky laugh. “You’re joking.” Simon didn’t move, and Kieren’s brows furrowed tight together. “No. I’m not five years old. You’ll never be able to pick me up, anyway.”

Simon was not entirely certain that he would be able to, either, but he just patted his shoulder again. “We won’t know until we try.”

“You…” Eyebrows still furrowed, Kieren shook his head slowly, disbelief etched across his features. There was something else beyond that first layer of emotion, though, something deeper, more profound and buried. Simon could not read it completely, but he could see it flickering over that pale face. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you? About helping me?”

“Of course I am. I told you what Amy said, how it would-”

“Redemption. Right.” Exhaling shakily, Kieren reached up to run a hand through his hair. His scars caught the light of the flowers. The smooth tissue glinted in the darkness.

“Redemption,” Simon agreed. He raised his eyebrows at Kieren and patted his shoulder a third time. “Come on. Let’s fix up your sky.”

“You are ridiculous,” Kieren said with a quiet laugh that wasn’t quite real. Still, he moved forward, his booted feet not making a sound as they passed over the flowers, his fingers hesitating right before they could touch Simon’s shoulder. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.”

It was an awkward procedure, getting Kieren’s long, skinny legs settled over Simon’s shoulders. The bulkiness of Simon’s jacket and sweater did not help matters, either. But eventually they managed to get into a somewhat comfortable position, with Kieren’s hands resting lightly upon Simon’s head, and Simon’s hands resting lightly upon Kieren’s ankles. Then it was simply a matter of Simon standing up without overbalancing, a task which ended up being far harder than it seemed and resulted in Kieren clutching at Simon’s hair as laughter spilled out from his lips. Not even Simon could keep a straight face during that.

“All right,” he said finally, when no one was in any danger of falling over or getting kicked in the face by flailing boots, “are you ready?”

Kieren tugged at his hair gently, and though Simon couldn’t see his expression, he could visualize the unimpressed look he was sure to be receiving right then. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing. How can I be ready?”

“Just try,” said Simon, because he did not know any better, either.

He imagined Kieren rolling his eyes. “Fine. I’ll just…” One hand left the top of Simon’s head, and Simon tipped it back enough to watch Kieren’s pale fingertips reach up into the darkness. They faded in the night air. Nothing happened. Kieren huffed in displeasure.

“Try again,” Simon insisted, tapping one finger against Kieren’s shin. “Picture what you want. Say it out loud, and make it happen.”

“But that’s- Whatever.” Kieren’s belly shifted slightly against the back of Simon’s head as he drew in a deep breath. “I want stars. Hundreds of stars. I want constellations.” He paused. “I want constellations for Jem.”

His fingertips glinted in the dark, then flared bright, as if someone had struck a match against them. Simon felt more than heard him gasp. “Oh,” Kieren said breathlessly. “I- It’s-” His voice failed him, breaking off into silence, and his fingers trembled. As he moved, little sparks of white light broke away, but instead of falling and settling down to the grass and flowers below, they hung there in the night, a handful of points of light in the sky. 

Simon murmured, “I told you.”

Laughing, a quiet, wet sound, Kieren slowly lifted his other hand away from Simon’s head. As soon as it was high enough, it began to burn with light as well. He wiggled them, hesitant, and they both watched as sparks drifted away from his skin into the night air. A careful circle left a ring of tiny lights. A wider sweep sent them shooting out into the far reaches of the sky. And an image, slowly traced out by two fingers, left a pattern in the darkness, a collection of burning points connected to a story that only Kieren knew.

“What’s that one?” Simon asked. He kept his voice quiet. It seemed wrong to speak too loudly.

“It’s Jem.” Sparks trailed after his fingers as Kieren redrew his shape in the sky, pointing out the most important parts. “See? Here is her shoulder- and her other one, and her head, and her arms-” His voice was quiet as well, but there was warmth in the words, an easy, fond familiarity, and Simon couldn’t fight the echo of that fondness that rolled through him.

“You have a whole sky to paint,” he said when Kieren finished. “Better keep going.” He wiggled his shoulder, jostling Kieren’s legs slightly, and then did it again when the boy in question poked him on the top of the head with a sharp elbow.

“Just shut up and turn around,” Kieren commanded.

Simon lost track of how long they stayed there, him turning this way and that when Kieren asked, Kieren reaching out to throw light into the sky. Sometimes the stars were random, just bright dots in the night, but then there was Kieren’s mother, and his father, and the Eiffel Tower, and dogs and cats and townsfolk and people Kieren had seen once and never forgotten. And the sky glittered, no longer empty but full of brilliant memories. Kieren stayed mostly silent as he painted, sharing only a name or a word now and then. Simon didn’t mind. There was peace in the quiet creation.

It was only once the darkness was almost completely full that he noticed Kieren hesitate. Pale fingers lifted towards one last empty space, paused, curled into his palm, then extended outwards again to slowly, delicately trace a shape into the night. It was a human figure, Simon could tell from the similarities in Kieren’s other constellations, but this one was different, somehow.

“Who is that?”

For a long while, it didn’t seem that Kieren was going to answer. His fingers drew out hands, hips, knees. Then, finally, when he was nearly done, he said simply, “Someone I used to know.”

Simon had been through enough in his own life to hear what was left unspoken. “Someone you loved.”

Kieren did not say anything, and the silence said volumes.

When the final constellation was done, Simon knelt back down to let Kieren shuffle awkwardly off his shoulders. They looked at one another for a moment, a shared gaze that Simon couldn’t quite understand, before Kieren sighed and tilted his head up towards the sky. He seemed ethereal in the combined glow of the stars above and the flowers around their feet, and Simon didn’t look away.

With another sigh, Kieren maneuvered himself down into a sitting position in the grass. The flowers moved away from his body, none of them ending up crushed beneath him, though they clustered themselves close to his sides. “I’m going to go to sleep,” he said firmly, without meeting Simon’s eyes. “And I’m not going to be able to if you stare at me all night long, so either go away or find something else to do.”

Simon hooked his thumbs into his pockets. “I don’t think you need to sleep here.”

“I never said I needed to. I want to, so I’m going to. Now stop looking at me.” Kieren waved a dismissive hand at him and flopped down on his back, once again without damaging a single petal. Every flower close enough gathered around his head, a natural, glowing corona that cast soft shadows across his face. He closed his eyes.

Simon did not obey immediately. His gaze traced the shadows across Kieren’s face, his mind marveling at how untouched and innocent he looked like this. It was not hard to believe that the boy in front of him had killed himself, not with the white halo of flowers or the pale, motionless features, but Simon couldn’t quite put that image together with any reason for suicide. He knew of many, and he was sure there were more beyond those, beyond imagining, but what could have driven Kieren to such a final, fatal choice? What would-

“Simon,” Kieren said, disgruntled, without opening his eyes, “stop thinking, stop staring, or I swear I am going to make you.”

Right. Not quite so innocent after all. Lips quirking slightly, Simon moved to lay himself down on the ground across from Kieren. He kept his motions careful and slow, not wanting to destroy any of the flowers, but they parted for him just as they had for Kieren. He lay back, close enough that he could have reached over his head to touch Kieren’s hair if he had wanted, and stared up at the stars, and found his eyes traveling to the last constellation, the unknown person. Perhaps…

“It was them, wasn’t it?” he asked. Kieren made a tired questioning noise, and he added, “The last person you made up there. You killed yourself for them.”  
He felt Kieren tense as if a wave had rolled through the ground, despite the distance between them. “Go to sleep, Simon,” Kieren said after several long, cold minutes. His voice was sharp and steely, but there was no mistaking the brittle tone beneath it. Simon had his answer.

But there would be no more talking that night, not now, he knew, so he closed his eyes and let the gentle gleam of the earth and sky lull him into dreamless sleep.

**

An eternity later, or maybe just a second, a laughing, chiming voice whispered against his ear, “Two more days, Simon. Two more days.” 

**

He opened his eyes again into the early morning sunlight. He lay there, blinking away the sleep that lingered at the backs of his eyes, and would probably have continued to lay there for a while longer, had a familiar face not suddenly popped up above him, upside down and smirking.

“Come on, then,” Kieren said brightly. “Sun’s been up for a while, it’s time to get going.”

The urge to roll over and ignore him rose up strong, and Simon was tensing up to do just that, but then he remembered his promise, the vow he’d made to Amy. Two more days. Groaning, he pressed one hand over his eyes. The movement was harder than it should have been, though, and he lifted his head slightly to peer down at himself. There were flowers and grass twined together over his arms and legs, a loose weave of greens and petals holding his wrists and knees gently against the ground. It wasn’t a restrictive hold, but an almost affectionate one, as if the field was reluctant to see him go. Simon looked back up at the boy above him and raised his eyebrows.

Kieren blushed, and the grass immediately retracted its hold. “Shut up,” he said. “It’s not me. Now are you coming or what?”

Pushing himself to his feet, Simon stretched, once, before casting a curious glance Kieren’s way. “I’m surprised you waited for me.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Kieren said as they started walking. “But I figured you would just end up following me anyway, so I saved you the trouble.” He gave Simon a wry grin and faced forward again. In the distance, far out of sight, seagulls shrieked.

It seemed that their uncomfortable last words to one another from the night before were being deliberately ignored, and, for the moment at least, Simon was willing to let it rest. Pushing Kieren too much, too soon, would not help anyone. He tipped his head slightly, the tiniest gesture of thanks, and motioned for Kieren to lead the way out over the fields of flowers.

They walked. They seemed to do a lot of that, Simon thought, and he wondered vaguely where they were going, or if Kieren even had any idea where he led. But he could still hear the gulls in the distance, their cries ever so faint but still there, and he knew there must be something beyond all the grass. He was just as curious to see that final destination as he was to understand the mystery that was Kieren himself.

“You want to talk to me about something,” Kieren said finally, once the sun was just about halfway between the earth and its noontime peak. “You might as well say it.”

“You won’t just ignore me?”

Kieren shrugged. “I never said that.” He paused. “But, maybe- If you tell me things about you, too, maybe I’ll be more likely to answer.”

Simon cocked an eyebrow at him. “I thought you were against the idea of speed dating.” A firm shove sent him staggering a couple of steps to the side. Kieren’s skinny arms were stronger than they looked. “Fine, fine. I… was raised to be devoutly religious.”

“Makes sense,” said Kieren, giving him a brief once-over. “Catholic?”

“Yes.”

“Thought so. I went to church a few times. Me and Jem were never big on it, so mum and dad never really made us go.” He slowed his step for a moment, bending to pick a handful of the tiny white flowers. “How old are you?”

“I thought I was supposed to be asking the questions.”

“Alright, go on, then.”

Simon thought for a moment. “How old are you?”

“Oh, real clever,” Kieren drawled. “I’m eighteen, thanks. And you?”

“Twenty-five. Where are you from?”

Things went on like that for a while- longer than a while, really, as the sun climbed higher and higher into the sky above them. Though the fields through which they walked barely changed, the same gentle valleys and rolling hills, the air grew sweeter, lighter. Every now and then, it carried with it the faintest tang of salt. Kieren kept his fingers busy as his mouth gave his short answers, and Simon watched with interest as the flowers he’d collected were woven together into a small loop. Kieren’s hands were deft, his knots tight and weaves sturdy, and it was obvious that the damage he’d carved into his arms did not affect his fingers here, in his own little world.

So Simon learned that Kieren could make flower crowns, and that he’d grown up in a town called Roarton, and that he’d made more mixtapes than he knew what to do with, and that he’d had a goldfish, once, but it ended in a tragedy, and dozens more tiny, inconsequential facts about his life. The little things that made him Kieren, but not the things that had brought him here, to the three days between life and death. And Simon shared similar unimportant facts about himself- the cat he’d had as a boy, his collection of poetry books, the colors of his childhood bedroom. Things that he had almost forgotten about.

But as interesting as Kieren was- and he was interesting, Simon could have happily listened to those little stories for hours on end- Simon did have a task to complete, and time was passing. He glanced up at the sun, then over at where Kieren was putting the finishing touches on his circlet. “Tell me,” he said, “were you happy?”

Kieren froze so suddenly that Simon took a few steps beyond him before he noticed. He looked over at Simon with wide, bright eyes, his fingers clenched tight around his flower crown. “Happy?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” said Simon. “Were you happy?”

The look took on an edge of hysteria. “I- Happy? Of course I wasn’t happy. I killed myself, in case you forgot.” His knuckles strained white with the force of his grip, petals crumpling between his fingers. “I wanted to die. I still want to die. I was miserable.”

“I didn’t mean overall. All those things you said- the mixtapes, the old goldfish, the piles of art supplies- did they make you happy? Were they too small to count?”

“I killed the goldfish,” Kieren reminded him, looking away. When Simon didn’t respond, just waited patiently, silently, he sighed, his shoulders slumping beneath his baggy hoodie. “They did,” he murmured. “But they weren’t enough.”

Simon nodded in understanding. The little things had not been enough to keep him away from the needle, either. “And nobody really understood, did they?” he asked. It was barely a question, he already knew the answer, but he was speaking to himself just as much as Kieren. A phantom itch, the memory of constant craving, crawled across his skin, drawn up by his words, and he scratched at the marks on his arm. “No matter what they tried, it never really helped.”

Without meeting Simon’s gaze, Kieren let out a quiet sound of agreement and gently smoothed out the creases he’d worn into one flower. The brushwork petal flattened easily at his touch. “My family tried to understand,” he said. “Mum came the closest, I think. But even she just couldn’t do it. She tried talking to me, and she told me these stories, and she called so many doctors and got me all these pamphlets, but-” He sighed and scuffed his foot through the grass.

“It wasn’t enough,” Simon said quietly.

“No,” Kieren said, “it wasn’t. I mean, I was glad she cared. It was better than my dad. He just didn’t know what to do, and he tiptoed around me like I was made of glass. And Jem, it was too much for her. She pulled away.” He kicked the ground again, a little harder this time. “It was like I’d- I don’t know, like I’d turned into someone else, someone they didn’t know anymore.” He looked over at Simon and smiled without any humor. “I guess I did, honestly.”

Something rumbled in the distance. Simon asked, “Do you really believe that?”

“What?”

“That you changed? That you had become someone entirely new?”

“Does it matter?” Kieren asked. His brow furrowed, his eyes dark with irritation. “I didn’t care. I don’t care. I didn’t want to talk to them, anyway. They couldn’t have helped me, I don’t need help.” Staring pointedly, fiercely, at Simon, he repeated, “I don’t need help.”

Obviously he had made a misstep in their conversation, Simon thought as he met that stare with a neutral one of his own. “I understand,” he said. “I didn’t want help, either.”

Kieren snorted. The rumble sounded through the air again, closer this time. “What, and now you do? A little late, don’t you think, what with you being dead and all.”

Opening his mouth to reply, to say no, or maybe yes, Simon paused. He had not really given it much thought, he realized. He’d been so focused on Kieren’s decision, and despite offering his memories in trade, he had not for a second considered applying that same choice to his own life. If he could get help, if he could try again, take a second chance at life, would he do it?

“I don’t know,” he said. Just admitting to his indecision aloud left a strange, uncomfortable weight in his belly. Less than two days, he thought firmly. Less than two days until he could leave this all behind.

Kieren’s shoulders relaxed, so slight it was almost imperceptible, and his slackened fingers let his flower crown slip down to crumple in a pile on the ground. He pressed his foot down on top of it, ground the tiny leaves and petals into pulp beneath his boot. “Yeah,” he said, “I kind of thought so.” Then he sighed and tipped his head up towards the sky. “Doesn’t really matter now, though, does it? We’re both dead. I’m staying here. You’re getting redeemed and going wherever you saintly redeemed people go. This is the end of the line for us both.”

The words were far less reassuring than it should have been. Simon fidgeted where he stood, turning his gaze up to the sky as well. The warm light of the sun was being slowly encroached upon by swirls of gray brushstroke clouds. The air felt colder now, and even with his bulky sweater, he couldn’t help but shiver.

“There was this guy, back home,” Kieren murmured, in a distant, unfocused tone. The dark clouds circled in tighter overhead. “He always said things like that to me. That I was at the end of the road, that I wasn’t worth anything, or I couldn’t do anything right, that I had nowhere else to go and he was just waiting until I realized it for myself. He told me he knew I would kill myself someday, because I didn’t have any reason to keep on living. I bet he’s happy now.”

Simon frowned. “Is he the one you painted in the stars?”

That seemed to bring Kieren back from wherever his mind had been, and he blinked over at Simon, lips twisted in a halfhearted grimace. “Him? Not bloody likely.”

“Is he the reason you killed yourself?”

“No,” said Kieren, shaking his head. He stopped, hesitated. “Or… Listen, he’s a bully, yeah, and he made my life hell, and he didn’t help, that’s for sure, but it’s not what you’re thinking. He didn’t harass me until I slit my wrists. He just told me the truth.”

“The truth about what?” Simon asked before he could stop himself, and Kieren’s gaze immediately shuttered. The young man he had first met was back, all burning anger and miserable, stony facade. “Never mind,” he said softly, though he knew the damage was already done. “Don’t tell me about that, then. Tell me more about him, this bully of yours.”

“Why?” Kieren bit out. “What are you going to tell me in return? I’m not your psychological study, you can’t just ask me questions and examine me.”

Simon nodded. “I know. I’m not backing out. It’s only your turn to go first.”

Kieren raised an eyebrow. “We’re taking turns now?” His voice was mocking, but something glinted in his eyes, something bright and desperate. The sunlight was gone now, the blue sky completely overtaken by dark clouds. Thunder rumbled, closer still, and on the horizon Simon saw streaks of lightning flash through the air. Everything felt cold, damp, preparing for the sky to let go and storm.

For Kieren to let go and storm.

And he did. “His name is Gary,” Kieren said, and the sky opened up above them. The rain was torrential, pouring down in freezing waterfalls that left them both immediately drenched. Kieren’s lips curled into a broken smirk as the thunder boomed above them, loud and close enough to shake the ground beneath their feet, and lightning illuminated a wild spark in his gaze. For the first time since he had arrived in Kieren’s personal death, Simon found himself truly afraid.

“He’s a year older than me.” It should have been impossible to hear Kieren’s voice over the storm, not without him screaming, but somehow Simon made out every word. “Mum and dad invited him over for me once, when we were kids, and oh, he hated me. He hated me so much. He knew I was different, even before I did, and he did everything he could to make me miserable for it. After that first time over, I never wanted to see him again.”

“Why didn’t you tell your parents?” Simon asked- shouted, as the tempest tried to drown out his words. He could barely see through the downpour.

Kieren’s bared teeth flashed bone white with lightning. “I couldn’t. Because I hated Gary right back, but Jem? She thought he was fantastic. She had the biggest crush on him as a child and it never went away. He knew, too, of course he did, and he loved to rub it in my face. But he made Jem happy, and he was good with her, he was kind with her, all those years as we grew up. How could I take that away from her? I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

Thunder roared again, shaking the ground so wildly that Simon stumbled backwards. He blinked away the rain that stung at his eyes, his hands reaching up to cover his ears, a hopeless attempt to shield himself from the overwhelming noise assaulting his senses. “But-”

“But nothing,” Kieren snarled. “He didn’t kill me. He would not have had the guts to kill me. He just hated me, and I could deal with that. I dealt with it for years. Did it make me happy? Of course not. But he did not bully me into killing myself. I chose to do that. It was my own damn decision.”

A lightning bolt, jagged and white, struck the ground between them, and for a moment, Simon’s vision was completely overtaken by darkness. He rubbed at his eyes, inhaling the acrid scent of burnt grass. “You didn’t have anyone?” he yelled to Kieren. “There was no one you could tell?”

Just like that, the storm eased. The thunder still rumbled, the lightning still flashed, the rain still came down, but it was no longer so oppressive. When Simon trusted his eyes again, he peered over at Kieren, only to see that Kieren was staring at the lightning scar on the ground. It was a long streak of blackened grass and dead flowers, a deep gash that ran not quite straight across the field. A perfect reflection of the scar that stood out against the skin of Kieren’s left arm.

“I did have someone,” Kieren said without looking up. “My best friend. He told me so many times that he would beat up Gary for me, so bad that he would never dare bother me again. I just had to ask.” He chuckled. It was a bleak, humorless sound. “I never asked. I didn’t want to get him involved, either. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.”

There were so many questions at the tip of Simon’s tongue, so many things he wanted to say, to coax Kieren into saying, but he refused to let them out. Push too hard, he knew, and Kieren would stop speaking at all. So instead, he shoved his wet hands into his equally wet pockets and looked down at the scar in the grass. It looked empty, he thought. It looked like it was waiting for something to come fill it up, like a garden ready to be planted.

“I had a best friend,” he said. “Or, I thought I did.” He didn’t look up, but he could feel Kieren’s gaze boring into him. “His name was Julian. I met him when I was… Well, after I came out. He was sympathetic. He was kind to me, and I’d never had a friend like that before, not really.” His lips twisted into a wry smile. “I was a lonely child, I suppose you’d say. Sheltered, with a strict Catholic father. No friends other than my mother.”

Chancing a glance up, he met Kieren’s stare, and when Kieren didn’t look away, he held it. “Julian gave me a place to stay. There was food, a roof over my head, companionship. I didn’t know what to expect, and everything he offered me was so good, I didn’t even think twice when gave me something new.”

He barely heard Kieren’s sharp gasp over the rain. “The drugs.”

“The drugs,” Simon said with a nod. “He told me it would help me. It did, I guess. It helped me forget. It made me feel good. But the cravings- The cravings are the worst.” The phantom itch rolled through him and he shivered. At least he would never have to deal with that again.

“What happened then?” Kieren asked.

“Simple. He stopped giving me anything. He told me that if I wanted a hit, I needed to do some things for him and a dealer he worked for.” Simon chuckled darkly. “I was too far gone at that point to stop. I did some terrible things for them.”

“Did you kill anyone?” asked Kieren. The rainfall was quiet now, still steady but no longer drumming loud against the ground.

Simon opened his mouth. The words wouldn’t come. They got stuck in his throat, sharp and painful, immoveable. He gave Kieren a thin, humorless smile instead, and hoped it got the message across. From the way Kieren’s brows furrowed, he thought it did. In a way, he was relieved not to be able to speak it. That was his secret, his deepest, darkest one, and it was not something to lightly share. He could still see it now, flashes of that night- the blood, the despair, the glassy, blank stare, the overwhelming hunger in his veins. Guilt weighed heavily on his shoulders.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Kieren coughed awkwardly and asked, “Were you still working for them? When you died, I mean.”

The lump in Simon’s throat eased up slightly, tension receding now that his secret wasn’t so close to the surface. The ever-present guilt refused to leave. “I’d just quit, actually,” he said. The irony wasn’t lost on him, though he didn’t feel up to cracking a smile.

Kieren looked confused. “Then why did you-?”

“Addiction doesn’t go away because you stop working for your dealer.”

Understanding softened the furrow of Kieren’s brow. “Oh.” He looked down at the lightning scar in the grass and rubbed at where that same line stood jagged upon his arm. “Julian,” he said after a moment. “Your best friend and worst enemy, huh?”

Simon shrugged. “Maybe not worst,” he said, because he knew to whom that honor fell. “But close enough, I suppose.”

“Well,” Kieren said, “I guess Gary wasn’t my worst enemy, either.”

The rain misted around them, barely heavy enough to be called rain anymore, and the thunder and lightning had faded away, but the clouds still hung heavy overhead, huge and dark with moisture. “What about your friend?” Simon asked.

“He was the best there was,” Kieren said quietly. “He was…” His words were raw, grief etched into every syllable, and Simon thought he understood. The long burn on the ground stood like an impenetrable wall between them. He didn’t dare speak. Silence weighed heavily across the fields.

And it broke when Kieren said, his words barely louder than a sigh, “His name was Rick.”

The sky fell. Or not fell, perhaps, but plunged, the swirl of dark clouds twisting in tight together to strike at the lightning scar below. A wave of cool water splashed upwards, and Simon hastily covered his head as it rushed over him, submerging him beneath the flow. To his surprise, it was not uncomfortable, had none of the overwhelming force of the rain, but was instead almost peaceful, a gentle, easy current. It wound around his body, tugging playfully at his upraised arms. He inhaled without thinking, immediately panicked at the feeling of water pressing against his nose and mouth, and then realized that oh, he could breathe.

He opened his eyes. The water swirled around him in streaks of translucent blues and purples and pinks, and through it he could see Kieren, standing in the swaying grass a few steps away. Kieren’s hair swayed and swirled in the current, a cloud of soft curls haloing his pale face. His oversized hoodie billowed around him. His skin glowed in the warm light shining down through the water, patterns of sparkles and waves dancing over his cheeks and nose and lips. Beautiful, Simon thought, and wished right then that he had some sort of skill at painting to capture the moment.

Kieren smiled at him, his eyes dark and sad in the pastel waters, and pointed up at the surface. Simon nodded, and with a kick, Kieren pushed off of the grassy ground. He was graceful in the water, the way only swimmers could be, slender arms and legs curving through the watercolor swirls, bubbles trailing behind him. Simon followed him up more slowly.

The air was warm when he broke through the surface. He tilted his head back and stared up at the clear blue sky above, the sun making its way towards the horizon and not a cloud to be seen. The only remaining evidence of the storm was the water he now treaded, a pool too narrow and long to be a simple lake- a river, perhaps? He couldn’t see how far it extended in either direction.

“Come on, Simon. Or are you going to stay here and swim all day?”

Simon looked over to his left. There on the bank, just above the water’s edge, crouched Kieren, watching him with an expression that might have been amusement had it not been weighed down with so much melancholy. He seemed completely dry. With another glance along the cool hues of the water, Simon swam to the edge to meet him. It was shallow there, easy to climb, and as he lifted himself out, the water rolled off of his body in thick rivulets. In the few seconds it took to stand up beside Kieren, he was dry as well.

“Come on,” Kieren said again. He set off down along the bank, and as Simon followed him, he saw that he’d been right. It was a river, long and not quite straight, cutting through the fields and vanishing off into the horizon where the distant gulls cried. It was a river that matched the jagged scars on Kieren’s skin.

Weariness hung heavy as they walked, leaving the air thick and humid, and neither of them attempted to break the silence that had settled between them. Their conversation during the storm, the parts of themselves they had shared, turned over and over in Simon’s mind, and he thought it likely that Kieren’s mind was no different. They had far more in common than he’d expected. It left him feeling off-balance, uncertain where he stood when it came to the unhappy young man he had only met the day before, but whose secrets he already kept close. To think that he had been so close to telling Kieren everything…

Discomfited, he drew himself out of those thoughts and focused instead on the present, on the young man in question who walked a few steps ahead of him. Kieren’s hands were buried in the pockets of his hoodie, his feet shuffling through the short grass, but though every movement was tinged with grief, his head was tipped back towards the sky, and he held his shoulders straight, unbowed. With every step he took, thin reeds began to curl up from the river’s edge beside him, tiny furls of green that quickly grew and grew, blooming outwards like strokes of fresh ink on the river banks and in the river itself. Simon looked back over his shoulder at the trail of tall reeds they had left behind them, lush and green, dotted with thick patches of leaves and strange flowers.

Something had changed in Kieren, he thought, and he didn’t ask if this had been a painting for Rick, because he already knew the answer. He wondered if something had changed in himself as well, and immediately dismissed the ridiculous idea.

Without warning, Kieren stopped walking. The reeds continued on growing ahead of him, leaving only a small open gap- Kieren-sized, perhaps- between him and the river. “I don’t want to walk the whole way,” he said.

Simon raised his eyebrows. “The whole way where?”

“I don’t know,” said Kieren firmly, “but I don’t want to walk the whole way there.” He frowned at the distance for a moment, at the reeds still blossoming along the edge of the water. Then, with the quiet sound of sudden inspiration, he turned towards the river and stepped through the gap, water sloshing around him as he crouched down to dip his hands into it.

Resting one hand against a thick reed, feeling the pulse of life inside it as it continued to grow, Simon watched curiously. Kieren was eternally confusing, he thought. It made his whole task more interesting, he would admit to that, but it remained no less true. Had Kieren been like this while alive, too?

Kieren lifted his hands from the river. Water rolled down his arms, soaking the bottoms of his rolled up sleeves, but when it dripped from his skin, it did not fall. The little droplets floated around his fingers and followed his every motion. He turned his hands this way and that, watching the pastel swirls, and Simon watched him. The bubbles glittered like jewels in the sunlight.

Finally, Kieren reached out and began to paint. His fingers worked in smooth, careful strokes, and wherever they moved, the water stayed in the air as if brushed onto some invisible surface. At first it seemed abstract, a flat and watery pattern, but then Simon began to see the shape of a railing, the sketch of a coil of rope, the suggestion of a porthole. The watercolors curved in towards the surface of the water, and there was a definite edge further up, and-

“Are you making a boat?” Simon asked, incredulous and a little bit amazed.

Kieren hummed in assent without looking back from where he leaned against the low hull of his boat to keep painting. “A sailboat, to be precise.”

“We’re going to sail down the river?”

Now Kieren did glance back, and with such a disbelieving stare that Simon had to fight back a smile. “No, I’m just going to paint this so we can look at it,” he said sarcastically. “Of course we’re going to sail, Simon, didn’t you hear me when I said I didn’t want to walk?”

“Of course,” Simon said, losing the fight against his smile, and was rewarded with a faint smile from Kieren in return. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes,” said Kieren, “you can be quiet. I’m trying to work, here.” But he was still smiling, and there was no force behind the words. Simon chuckled lightly and raised his hands in submission, and Kieren turned back to his sailboat.

Silence reigned over the river as the sun sank closer and closer to the horizon, but this time, it was light, companionable, in a way Simon would never have expected to feel around someone he’d only met a day earlier. Despite the long hours that passed, he did not grow bored. He watched as Kieren painted a mast, painted sails and rigging, compass and tiller, the long flat deck and the sunken cockpit. The pale pastels of the waters caught the setting sun’s fiery colors, and the sailboat seemed to burn beneath Kieren’s deft fingers. Kieren, too, was alight with the vibrant reds and golds.

When the sun was only halfway above the horizon, and the sky was darkening with purples and blues and the first hints of Kieren’s stars, Kieren finally stepped away from the boat. It floated there in the river, barely discernible from the water beneath it, but Simon could see the delicacy in its design, all the care that Kieren had painted into its lines and curves. He reached out to brush his fingers along the hull. The water rippled beneath his touch, but it stayed firm, and when he pulled his hand back, it remained dry.

He turned to look at Kieren. “Beautiful.”

Kieren blushed, the sunset’s warm light catching his pink cheeks and heightening the colors. “Yeah, well,” he said, fidgeting with his hands. “I didn’t want it to be ugly.”

“And it’s not,” Simon reaffirmed.

If it was at all possible, Kieren’s blush deepened. He flapped a hand at Simon, as if waving away the words, before moving to the side of the boat and clambering awkwardly over the edge, sliding down into the cockpit. Simon could see his legs through the hull, though they were blurred, indistinct, as though Kieren stood in thigh high water. 

Kieren held out a hand to him. “Coming?”

There was a note behind that one word, something almost hopeful, that Simon hadn’t heard before. Even if he hadn’t wanted to board the watercolor sailboat, he would never have been able to say no. “Of course,” he said, and grabbed Kieren’s hand to be helped over the edge.

Once they were both safely in the small cockpit, Kieren lifted his hand and drew one long, slow sweep through the air above their heads. A gentle wind rushed across the water, rustling through his hair and catching at the sails, just enough to push them down the river without risking any damage. A swell of pride filled Simon’s belly as he watched the reeds begin to slide past them. This level of control, this belief in what he could do- Kieren had indeed grown over the past two days. Simon could only hope that this meant he was beginning to reach his final decision.

He didn’t say that aloud, though. Instead, he asked, “Do you have any idea how to sail?”

“None,” Kieren said with a quiet laugh. “But I don’t think I really need to, here.” He looked back over the stern, at the small waves the boat left as it sailed smoothly down the river, then out over the prow, at the unknown waters ahead of them. “I think the boat will take us where we want to go.”

“And where’s that?” Simon asked softly.

Kieren stared up at him, meeting his gaze and holding it. His eyes flickered like embers in the dying sunlight. “I don’t know yet. But we’ll get there.” He turned away and moved to the seat on one side of the rudder, relaxing against the semi-translucent edge of his sailboat and closing his eyes. He did not take up all the space there, though, despite the seat’s small size. There was easily enough room for a second person to rest by his side.

Simon hesitated. The night before, Kieren had pointedly told him to stay away. Was the extra space a simple coincidence? Was he reading too far into something that had no meaning at all?

But then Kieren opened his eyes, just enough to peer at Simon through his lashes. His lips quickly slightly, and, with a motion so subtle that Simon nearly missed it, he patted the seat next to him.

All the nervous tension coiled in Simon’s belly dispersed at once. There could be no mistaking a sign like that. He moved forward, easing himself down beside Kieren. Their shoulders were pressed together, a welcome touch, easier than any they had shared so far, and Simon relaxed into the grounding pressure. He looked over at Kieren just in time to watch those eyes slide shut again.

Ahead of them, the sun dipped lower and lower, until it sank completely beneath the horizon. The fields surrounding the river shone softly with the light of their tiny flowers, and the night sky above glittered with the stars Kieren had painted. Simon tilted his head back to admire them, remembering the way they had flown from Kieren’s fingers the previous night, how they had lit up the darkness. They were beautiful, he thought, more beautiful than those back in life, and they were perhaps one reason to remain here instead of taking a second chance.

His admiring stare fell upon a certain constellation, one whose name he now knew. Rick. The last person Kieren had placed in the stars. The one he had killed himself for. The one who, if Simon was not mistaken, had died as well. But how? There were still questions for which he had no answers.

He cleared his throat. “Kieren-”

“No.” But there was no heat in the word, just weariness. Kieren’s eyes remained closed. “I know what you want to ask, Simon. I don’t want to talk about it right now, alright?”

Simon gazed down at the young man by his side, at the way Kieren’s lashes fanned across his cheeks, the way his chest rose and fell beneath his hoodie, the way the starlight softened his scars. Kieren had given no outright refusal. Not now, he’d said, and Simon thought that might have meant later. “Alright.”

Kieren sighed. “Thank you.” He shifted in his seat, pressing against Simon’s side until Simon was forced to move his arm out of the way. Immediately tucking himself underneath it, Kieren rested his head against Simon’s chest and curled up more fully against him.

“Kieren-” Simon began, startled, but Kieren only made a hushing sound. It quickly became apparent that he was not going to move. Giving in with a chuckle, Simon wrapped his arm more comfortably around Kieren’s shoulders and settled back again. “Good night, Kieren.”

There came a muffled response, something that might have been good night if it hadn’t been mumbled into Simon’s sweater, and then there was quiet. The only sounds to break the stillness of the night were the gentle gurgle of running water and the quiet rhythms of their own breaths. Kieren’s evened out into the slow, steady beat of slumber soon enough, and Simon found it soothing, tempting him to close his eyes even though he had not been tired a moment before. He gave in to the urge and let himself drift away.

**

“You two look very sweet like that.”

Simon opened his eyes to the darkness of the void. He blinked, disoriented, as his mind struggled to piece together his memories of Kieren and the sailboat with the emptiness he stood in now. “What?”

Amy flickered into existence before him, smiling. “You and Kieren,” they said. “All cuddled up together like that. It’s very cute. I’m glad you’re getting along so well.”

An echoing smile tugged at Simon’s lips, unbidden, but then the cold reality of his situation, his task, washed it away in an instant. “I only have one more day now, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Am I…” Simon swallowed, fear twisting at his heart. “Am I doing okay?” He didn’t want to fail. He couldn’t fail, not only because of what he would gain in the end, but for Kieren as well. They both needed him to succeed.

“Simon Monroe,” Amy chided, reaching out to clasp his hands between their own, “you shouldn’t need to ask me that. Don’t you know how it’s going? Can’t you feel it?”

Simon shook his head, the fear swelling.

They must have seen the panic in his heart, for Amy sighed and dropped his hands, only to envelop him in their arms. “You don’t need to be afraid,” they whispered. “You’re doing wonderfully, Simon. You’ve stayed by his side, you’ve listened when he needed it and talked when he did not. I knew I picked the right man for this. You haven’t disappointed me, not at all.”

Not daring to return the embrace- he was not nearly brave enough to try and hug an angel- he twisted his hands into the knit of his sweater. “Then, he made his choice?” Somehow, the idea was just as nerve-wracking as that of failure.

“Not yet,” Amy said, drawing back. “But he is not anywhere near as conflicted as he was before. All we can do is wait and see. There’s still one day left.” They paused, and their eyes went distant, their head cocking to one side, as if listening to something only they could hear. “Now, I think it’s about time for you to wake up, Simon Monroe.”

“But-”

Amy smiled and cupped his face with one hand. “I chose you for a reason. Don’t be afraid.”

**

A soft snore drew Simon into wakefulness. He opened his eyes slightly, squinting out into the morning sunlight, and let out a long, breathy yawn. When he moved to stretch, though, he found that one of his arms was held in place by a heavy weight, something that mumbled and wriggled when he tried to pull free. Curious, he blinked down at his side.

Oh. Kieren.

The boy was still fast asleep, curled up against Simon’s chest, one hand clutching at the sleeve of Simon’s sweater. He looked innocent, carefree, and if it were not for the long scars on his forearms, Simon might have believed him to be just another young man, moving through the ups and downs of life. The thought left Simon feeling uncomfortable. That was exactly what had led Kieren to this place- nobody knowing how to see beyond that, how to find the real Kieren under it all. It strengthened Simon’s resolve to see this through to the end. He had one more day. He would make it count.

For now, though, there was nothing to do but wait. After everything he had been through, Kieren deserved his rest. Simon settled himself back in his seat and closed his eyes, listening for the ever-present sound of gulls in the distance.

Instead, a faint rumbling sound caught his ear. He frowned, opening his eyes again and looking around for any dark clouds, any sign of an incoming storm. But the sky was clear and bright and blue. He moved his gaze down and out at the river ahead of them.

And immediately jumped to his feet, grabbing at Kieren’s arm. “Kieren,” he barked, “wake up.”

Dark, bleary eyes peered up at him. “What…?”

“We have to get off the water,” Simon insisted. He pulled the sleep-rumpled Kieren to his feet, ignoring his tired protests. “Come on, we need to go-”

“Why?” Kieren demanded, yanking his arms away. “You can’t say something like that and not tell me why.”

Simon just lifted his hand and pointed wordlessly down the river. In the distance, steadily drawing closer, the reeds lining the riverbanks stopped abruptly. Between them, the current vanished into a thick mist, and beyond, where there should have been rolling fields of green, there was nothing, only a long expanse of sky. The rumbling deepened as they sailed closer, roaring and crashing, almost deafening in its intensity.

Kieren’s eyes lit with understanding. “Oh, shit,” he said, and stared between the mists and Simon for a moment. 

A moment that was too long, in Simon’s opinion, and he grabbed at Kieren again, pulling him bodily towards the edge of the sailboat. The forceful motion seemed to snap Kieren out of his shock, for suddenly Simon wasn’t pulling so much as being pushed. He refused to clamber up out of the cockpit until Kieren was safely out, despite Kieren’s insistence, and by the time they were both wobbling on the edge of the boat, they were nearly at the border of the mists, and the thundering was so loud they could not hear each other, no matter how loud they shouted.

There was no time to hesitate. Simon clasped Kieren’s hand tightly in his own, felt Kieren grip back just as firmly, and jumped into the churning water.

The river buffeted at Simon’s body, throwing him this way and that beneath the surface, until he’d lost all sense of direction. The blur of pastels muddled his senses. He had no idea whether he was right side up or upside down, whether he was anywhere near the boat or the edge or the riverbank. Water pressed against his mouth as he fought to keep his breathing steady. But he did not let go of Kieren’s hand, and he kept struggling to swim towards safety, or at least, where he hoped safety would be.

Finally, after what seemed like ages but might only have been seconds, he broke through the surface. To his immense relief, he was not anywhere near the mists. Kieren popped up beside him, eyes wide and wild, but it was still too loud to speak, so Simon merely raised his free hand to gesture at the riverbank ahead of them. Nodding, Kieren kicked off towards it, and Simon kept pace at his side.

The reeds at the river’s edge parted as Kieren drew near, and they climbed up through the gap, back out into the flower-dotted fields. They stood there for several minutes, silent, just staring at the rushing waters and the mists into which their boat had vanished. Only then did Simon realize they had not let go of each other’s hands. From the way Kieren startled suddenly, it seemed he’d noticed the same. They shared a long look, Simon unable to read the emotion within Kieren’s eyes, before Kieren smiled faintly and slowly pulled away.

“Let’s get a better look,” he said, as they were far enough from the roaring waters now that they could hear one another’s raised voices.

Simon followed his gaze to the edge of the field- to the edge of the world, maybe, for the grass and flowers ended abruptly, giving way to empty air. Here and there, rocky outcroppings made of charcoal smears stretched out into the sky. Kieren led the way to the nearest one.

“Is this the end of the world?” Simon asked, peering down past the rock beneath his feet. A long, long ways below, he could see the wispy tops of white clouds. If anything lay even further down, they hid it well, but he was willing to bet that it was empty, nothing but the void.

Kieren shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.” He sounded distracted, and when Simon looked over at him, he saw that Kieren was staring intently over at the mists at the end of the river. Or rather, not the mists, but what they had been hiding.

Tumbling off the edge of the world was a waterfall, bright and thunderous. The pastel colors of the river poured down, down through the clouds far below, vanishing into whatever lay beyond. A gust of wind caught some of the spray and sent it misting against Simon’s face. It was cool, soft, almost like gentle fingers brushing over his cheeks.

“Beautiful,” he said, right as Kieren said, “Good thing we didn’t go over that, huh?” They looked at each other and grinned.

“I guess we can’t go any further this way,” said Kieren, turning to look back at the fields that stretched out long and green behind them. His smile slipped, his lips curving down into a frown. “I don’t know where to go from here, though.”

With a shrug, Simon stepped back off into the grass. “Neither do I,” he said simply. “But we can’t have seen it all yet. There must be other places around here somewhere.”

“Right,” Kieren said. The anxious look in his eyes belied his certainty, but he followed Simon off of the rocky ledge and started down along the edge of the fields, away from the river. 

The walk did not last long, though, for within a few minutes he stopped abruptly. “This isn’t right,” he groaned, grabbing at his own hair and tugging. “This feels wrong. I shouldn’t- I must have missed something back there. Something important.” He met Simon’s concerned stare, his eyes wild. “We have to go back.”

They didn’t have time for this, Simon thought. He looked ahead of them, at the line where field met sky, continuing on as far as the eye could see. He looked behind them, at the lines of the reeds and the mists at the end of the river, only a little ways back. He looked up at the sun, still in its morning curve but closer to the zenith than he would have liked. Then he looked back down at Kieren.

“I know,” Kieren said, before Simon could speak. “There’s only one day left. I know.” He hesitated, and Simon could see a myriad of emotions flickering through those dark eyes, and then Kieren reached out and clasped Simon’s hand. His touch was gentle, but Simon got the feeling that he would have a hard time pulling away if he tried. “You’ve come this far. Don’t you want to see what else is out here?”

Simon stared at him. “You’re not innocent at all, are you?”

Kieren just smiled crookedly. “Not in the slightest.” The humor faded from his expression, and he squeezed Simon’s hand once before letting go. “I’m going back there whether you come along or not. It’s not up to you.”

“I have to come with you,” Simon said. Something tugged uncomfortably at his heart. “I-”

“Redemption, right?”

But Simon shook his head. “More than just that. Yes, Amy sent me here, and yes, it was originally just a job, but then I met you.”

“That sounds ridiculous,” Kieren said.

“Maybe, but it’s still true. You have the chance to make a choice, Kieren, and I want to make sure you use it. You've come so far. I won’t abandon you now.”

“Even if I choose the wrong thing?” Kieren peered up at him. Simon felt as if those eyes were staring through him, reading deep into every move he made. “What if you don’t agree with what I pick?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. This is your choice, not mine. Whatever you decide, I will support you.” This time, it was Simon who reached out, Simon who grasped Kieren’s hand and held it gently.

“Simon…”

“You said it yourself. I’ve come this far with you. I want to see where it is you’ve been leading me. I want to see the end with you.” He squeezed Kieren’s hand and did not let go. “Tell me what you want, Kieren, and I will do whatever I can to help you.”

Kieren looked at him as if he’d never seen Simon before. “I- I don’t-” He swallowed heavily. “Are you sure I deserve that?”

“Yes,” Simon said, with more certainty than he’d ever felt about anything in his whole life.

Drawing in a shaking breath, Kieren curled his fingers slowly around Simon’s hand. “Then,” he said, hesitant, as if expecting Simon to laugh, to take it all back, “I want you to come with me. Right now. I want you to walk back there with me.”

They didn’t have time, Simon thought again. But aloud, he said, “All right.”

So turn back they did, Kieren leading the way, Simon following along right behind him. They returned to the gap in the reeds, but instead of stopping there, Kieren stepped out into the water. The pastels swirled around his boots. Simon watched him from the edge of the riverbank. A minute passed, then two, the only sound the roar of the waterfall through the mists.

“Oh,” Kieren said suddenly.

Simon frowned. “Kieren, what-?”

But Kieren was already grabbing his wrist, pulling him down into the water. “I know what we have to do,” he said. “It’s going to sound crazy, and it probably is a little crazy, but you have to trust me, okay?”

“Trust you?” Simon repeated, unable to keep the suspicious tone out of his voice. He looked around the river, trying to see what had sparked Kieren’s imagination. Everything seemed exactly how they had left it. There were the reeds, there were the fields, there was the mist and the waterfall. No new pathway jumped out at him.

“Yes, trust me.” Kieren stepped backwards again, to where the water level rose to his knees, and dragged Simon with him. Then he took another step, and another, until the water was at his waist, his chest, his collarbone-

The truth of what was happening struck Simon like a lightning bolt. He recoiled, pulling his hand free, and gaped at the young man in front of him. “You can’t be serious.”

Kieren shrugged. “It’s going to work,” he said, and stepped back so that the water was at his chin. “Well, I think it’s going to work, at least.”

The current yanked at Simon’s clothes as he reached out to try- to fail- at grabbing for Kieren again. “No,” he snapped, gritting his teeth when Kieren leaned away out of reach. “It’s not a good idea. Get back here, we can find a different way.”

“No,” said Kieren. With a mischievous smile, he stepped back one more time, and let the river carry him off his feet.

Simon splashed forward, but it was already too late. Kieren was already beyond his grasp. “Kieren,” he cried, his fingers clutching at empty air. His mind bombarded him with terrible ideas of what would happen, each one worse than the last.

Kieren, though, seemed utterly unconcerned. He waved at Simon as he floated closer and closer to the mist and the waterfall that lurked behind it. “You promised to help me with whatever I wanted,” he shouted over the roar of the water. “Help me with this, Simon. Come on, don’t be afraid.”

The words resounded through Simon’s mind. Don’t be afraid. He remembered the people who had said that to him over the years. His mother. His father. His pastor. Julian, handing him the syringe. Amy, smiling at him in the dark. Kieren, drifting away.

He watched Kieren vanish into the mists.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said with a sigh, and gave himself to the river.

The water was gentler now that he wasn’t fighting it, but that did not stop the fear from rising up tight in his chest as he was swept closer and closer to the edge of the world. He flinched and shut his eyes as the first tendrils of mist brushed against his face, damp and cool. For several long, heart-pounding moments, he was aware of nothing but the thundering water, the clinging mists, the darkness behind his eyelids. He lost all sense of direction and time.

Then the damp feeling of the mist was gone, and there was light. He eased one eye open, just enough to see.

Simon had been on a rollercoaster once in his life, back when he was young and his mother had convinced his father to let him go to the fair. It had been a tiny thing, slow enough for small children, with only a few rolling hills in the track. He hadn’t been sure what to think of it, had clutched the safety rail and tried not to look too scared, and when his mother asked if he wanted to go on again, he’d hesitated for a second and shaken his head.

Kieren’s waterfall was nothing at all like that rollercoaster.

The pastel waters glittered in the sunlight, so bright it was almost blinding, and the roar from below rumbled loud enough to make Simon’s head hurt, but he didn’t notice any of it. All he could focus on was the end of the river, the edge of the world, where the water gave way to sky as it tipped straight down into empty air. His fingers scrabbled around desperately, that instinctive need to grab onto something to save himself, and found nothing. The edge drew closer. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. There it was, he was at the end, looking down at the clouds an eternity away-

He fell. It wasn’t graceful, nor was it dignified, not with him flailing and nearly swallowing his tongue in his panic. Air and water rushed past him. He stared at the clouds far below, tried not to imagine falling through them, or what might wait on the other side. What would happen to him when he passed through? Was it even possible for him to die a second time? A silent scream rose up in his throat, choking him. It was going to escape, it was going to escape, and then that would be it, all over, the end- He didn’t want it to end.

And then a pair of pale, slender hands gripped his own, and all at once he was no longer free-falling but floating, slow and gentle. He looked up at a familiar smile.

“I told you it would work,” said Kieren.

Simon tried to reply, to say something sarcastic or maybe fond. His throat managed a rough squeak.

The humor slid from Kieren’s expression. “Simon?” he asked, obviously concerned. “Are you really that scared?”

No matter what Simon tried, he couldn’t make his body obey. His hands clutched at Kieren’s fingers, his knuckles white with strain. Another strangled sound escaped his mouth.

Kieren drooped. His whole body slumped forward, through his grip on Simon remained firm, and his lips curved into a frown. “I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “I just- I thought it would be fun, and the other night you said that maybe I should try flying, and I wanted- I didn’t mean- I’m sorry-”

If Simon had harbored any doubts about Kieren’s sincerity, the steady stream of apologetic babble, coupled with the way Kieren seemed to curl into himself, guilt and self-reprobation shuttering out any other emotions, would have settled them immediately. As it was, Simon, with his mind growing clearer and clearer as the panic ebbed away, wondered if this was how Kieren had been before he died. The very thought made him sick.

“Kieren,” he said, more hoarsely than he wanted, though at least the words would come now. “Kieren, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” Kieren spat. “I made you do it and you hated it. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have-” His fingers twitched against the back of Simon’s hands, as if he wanted to pull away but didn’t dare.

So Simon did. Forcing himself beyond the fear- Kieren wouldn’t let him fall, he truly believed in that- he slowly let go of Kieren. His breathing stuttered at the first moment of being unanchored in the open air, and Kieren reached out for him again without hesitation, but Simon shook his head and held back. “Look at me, Kieren.” When Kieren didn’t obey, he said it again, louder. “Look at me.”

Kieren met his gaze. His eyes were big and dark and wet. “What?”

“I followed you because I wanted to,” Simon said. “I promised you my help because I wanted to, and I still want to.” He paused and looked down at the clouds that still seemed so far away, despite his and Kieren’s gentle descent. “This might not be my favorite mode of travel, I will admit to that, but if you jumped off the edge of the world again, Kieren, I would still follow right after you.”

“Really?” Kieren asked, and the quiet hope in his voice was mingled with such disbelief that Simon thought he would have followed this boy into eternity and back just to make him believe it.

“Really.” Smiling slightly, Simon let their fingers entwine again. Relief rushed through him- he really, really did not like this method of travel- but he refused to show it. “I’m glad I met you, Kieren.” He hesitated, then bit the bullet and added, “And I have no doubt that Rick felt the same.”

Kieren froze, not quite recoiling but going stock-still in a way that should have been impossible while drifting midair. “What?” he breathed.

“I didn’t know Rick, but I know he must have been glad to know you, too.” Simon kept his grip on Kieren’s hands loose, soft enough to easily break, and hoped that Kieren would stay. “You don’t have to tell me about him if you don’t want. But if you do, I would like to hear it.”

There was silence, save for the wind that gusted up around their bodies, tugging at their clothes and hair as they floated downwards. Kieren stared at Simon. Simon stared right back. Neither of them pulled their hands away.

Finally, after a time that felt at once like forever and nothing at all, Kieren whispered, “I want to tell you.”

Simon nodded. He didn’t smile, he didn’t think smiling would be right in this situation, not when Kieren was about to bare something so deep and dark and secret. “I’m listening.”

“Rick was…” Drawing in a long, shuddering breath, Kieren broke eye contact to tilt his head back towards the clear blue sky above them. “Rick was my best friend. We’d known each other since we were children. But he- He was more than that, too.” His fingers twitched and squeezed tight around Simon’s, and Simon squeezed back, trying to steady him.

“I loved him. I loved him more than anything in the whole world. He was my everything. And- I know what you’re thinking, I’m only eighteen, how could anyone be that important to me?” Kieren turned his gaze back down to glare at Simon, weak but daring him to disapprove. “My therapist told me all that bullshit and more. But he was. I was in love with him.”

“I believe you,” Simon said quietly. “I’d never think otherwise.”

Offering him a shaky smile that wasn’t quite real, Kieren went on. “He loved me, too. Maybe not as much as I loved him, but I know he did. And we had this place in the woods, this little cave- a hole in a rock, honestly, it was so tiny I don’t even know how we fit.” He laughed. It was wet, and sounded almost like a sob, but there was some measure of relief behind it, too, and Simon wondered how long it had been since Kieren had laughed about Rick. “We went there whenever we could, and we just spent time together. It didn’t even matter what we did, as long as we were both there.

“Sometimes, we would talk about the future, and in the future, there was always us. Rick and Kieren, Kieren and Rick. We never even considered that one of us wouldn’t be there.” His eyes went distant, unfocused, staring at something that Simon could not see. “I wanted us to go to Paris. It always seemed like a wonderland, Paris. I figured we could be ourselves there, and we would live in a little flat in the city, and I would paint all the time, and we’d watch the sunrise in the mornings and go to little cafes during the day, and- and-” He sniffled. “We’d be so in love, and we’d be together forever.”

There was a pause as Kieren sniffled again, and looked at Simon with dark eyes wet with tears, and a smile crooked with pain. “It seems kind of silly now, doesn’t it?” he asked softly. “I never even thought about how we would afford to live in Paris. I’m not that good an artist, and Rick wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. The whole thing was just a childish fantasy.”

Simon shook his head. “It was a good fantasy. That’s what matters.”

“You- Simon, you don’t-” Kieren snorted, the sound harsh but without malice. “No. It doesn’t matter. Rick and I, we thought we would always be together. But then his dad found out. Caught us snogging, really. He- Well, I was banned from the house. I didn’t see Rick for almost a week. It doesn’t sound like much, I know, but Roarton’s a small place. I knew his dad was keeping him away from me. And then…”

This was it, Simon knew. The real heart of the matter, the reason behind the gashes in Kieren’s wrists. He kept his silence, waiting as Kieren trailed off, swallowed, and failed to speak again. The wind whistled between them, and still he waited. There could be no rushing this. He didn’t want to try.

The words, when they came, sounded as though they were being torn from Kieren’s throat, ragged and agonized. “I got a letter. He- Rick, he slipped it under my front door. Didn’t even dare to come talk to me, not with his dad watching him all the time. He-” Kieren choked on his own voice. The tears that had been building up in his eyes began to slip out, and the winds caught them and carried them up towards the blue sky above, tiny bubbles in the air. “He was going to war. He joined the army, he was going to war, and he didn’t- He couldn’t even tell me. I had to see it in a letter, a stupid little letter.

“It was because of his dad. He didn’t say anything about it in the letter, but it was obvious. His dad wanted him to be a man, not to have anything to do with someone like me, and Rick, he did it. He ran away from it all, from me. Even after everything we had planned. And then he promised to sort everything out with his dad when he got back, wrote it out in his stupid letter, like that was even possible. But that’s not the worst of it. Do you know what the worst of it all is, Simon?”

Simon didn’t say anything, but he knew.

“He died,” Kieren snarled. His tears were coming harder now, glittering bubbles trailing their way overhead. “He fucking died out there, Simon. He didn’t even tell me goodbye, he couldn’t tell me goodbye. And it was- If I hadn’t-” The miserable anger strengthening Kieren’s shoulders gave out suddenly, and he slumped forward, a puppet with its strings cut. His forehead rested against Simon’s collarbone. “It was my fault. If I hadn’t kissed him that day, if I had never told him how I felt, maybe- He would still be alive. If I’d never been there, he would still be alive. I should never have- I should have just-”

So I did. I went out in the woods, to our cave, and I lit all the candles, and I- My dad gave me this pocket knife, one of those fancy ones. I didn’t leave a note. It didn’t feel right, not when I was doing everyone a favor by going away. I took the knife, and I just- I killed him, Simon, it was my fault, it was all my fault-”

Simon wrapped one arm around those thin shoulders and held Kieren close as the words dissolved into quiet sobs. His chest ached, and he wanted nothing more than to jump back in time, to be there with Rick and Kieren on the day everything had changed, to somehow protect them from it all. He had come to like Kieren far more than he would have believed possible, he realized, and tightened his hold. It was terrifying, caring for someone so much, but he didn’t want to lose it.

Maybe that realization was what opened his mouth again. “I told you that it was my fault that my mother died,” he murmured once Kieren’s sobs had quieted somewhat. “I’ll tell you the rest of it now, if you would like to hear it.”

Kieren didn’t move, and when he spoke his words were muffled slightly by the thick fabric of Simon’s sweater. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” said Simon, “but I want to.”

“Then I’ll listen,” said Kieren.

Now that he’d committed himself to speaking, though, Simon could not seem to find the words. Guilt settled heavy on his shoulders and coiled uncomfortably in his belly. He fumbled for where to begin. “I told you about Julian,” he said finally. “About how I worked for our dealer. But there were more than just us. And one day, we went to my house, and-”

He stopped and cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose you need to know more about my family, first. My mother was my closest friend. She always did her best to be there for me, no matter what. My father, though… He was strict, very religious, and he expected me to grow up the same way. And when I didn’t, if I made a mistake, he would punish me for it.”

Kieren drew in a sharp breath. “He hit you?”

“No,” Simon said. “He never went that far. But it always seemed as if he would, if I did one more thing wrong. And I did so many things wrong, Kieren.” He chuckled mirthlessly, ignoring the way it rasped in his throat. Anger muddied the guilt inside him. “My mother tried to tell me that he loved me, in his own way, and I wanted to believe it. He was my dad. How could he not love me? And hell, in the end, maybe he did, somehow. But it wasn’t enough.”

When I got hooked on the drugs, everything immediately became worse between us. I know it was my fault, but since half the reason I started using in the first place was to get away from him, how could I stop? What good was going clean when all I had to look forward to was more of him? Besides, I owed so much to my dealer by then, there was no way I could have stopped. Every time I saw him, the way he treated me only made me want my fix more. If he’d only-”

“I understand,” Kieren said quietly, lifting his head from Simon’s chest just enough to meet his eyes. “But what about your mother?”

Startled by the interruption, Simon blinked at him. Then his gaze fell to his own hand where it rested upon Kieren’s back- or where it had rested, for now it was clenched so tightly in the fabric of Kieren’s hoodie that his knuckles were stark white and trembling. He immediately pulled away, ashamed, but Kieren caught him before he could draw back completely.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Smiling sadly, Kieren moved forward until their foreheads rested together. “You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to, Simon.”

It was a gentle touch, but even that faint pressure was enough to settle Simon’s whirling thoughts. He swallowed heavily. “I want to tell you the rest.” The truth in his words ached, his chest feeling tight and full, as if his secret was desperate to come spilling out between his lips. Had Kieren felt the same way? Simon did not dare ask.

Kieren hummed lightly and closed his red-rimmed eyes. “Then go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

And somehow, that was enough. Simon closed his eyes as well, filled his lungs with cool, fresh air, and began again. “My mother was devastated. She would try to find me out on the streets, even when I told her to leave me alone. She always brought me back home again, no matter how high I was, or how much I was craving. And I didn’t fight her as much as I should have. I suppose I wanted her attention just as much as I always had.”

But one of those times, when she brought me home again, the other addicts and I had come up with a plan. My parents, they weren’t rich, but they had some money stored away, just in case, and I knew where it was. So my mother let me back in the house and got me into bed, and when she went back to her bedroom, I let in everyone else. We were supposed to be quiet, but we were all so high…”

My mother came back out. I was at the foot of the stairs, and I saw her at the top. I tried to tell her to go back to bed, but she wouldn’t listen, and so I was going to go up and get her, but then-” The memory flashed through Simon’s mind, sharp and clear. “One of the men noticed the ring on her finger, and he went to grab it, and- My mother was never much of a fighter, but she would not give it up, and her foot slipped, and-”

His voice refused to work. Kieren breathed out shakily. “She fell?”

“Yes.” Simon squeezed his eyes shut tighter. It blocked out none of the scene in his mind, not the blood or the crack or the blank, glassy gaze. “She- I was right at the bottom of the stairs. She fell- It was right into my arms.” The blood had stained his sleeves, and he had thrown his shirt out as soon as he had left the house, had torn it off and shoved it away as if it burned his skin. “I couldn’t- I didn’t- If I hadn’t let her bring me back that night, if I had stayed out, she would still-”

“That’s why you wanted to stop using, isn’t it?” Kieren asked. Simon opened his eyes to meet the dark ones staring back at him from so close. “You said you quit your dealer’s service. It was because of her, wasn’t it?”

Nodding, Simon gathered his wits together for one last stretch. “My father saw me down there, holding her, and her blood was- There wasn’t any way for me to- He threw me out. Told me never to come back.” He shivered, and Kieren’s hands came up to steady him. “I don’t blame him. It was my fault. I should never have gone home that night. I should have stayed away.”

For a long moment, Kieren was silent. Then, without warning, he moved away, though he didn’t let go of Simon’s arms. “Simon,” he said slowly, “it wasn’t your fault.”

Simon stared at him. “What?” How could Kieren think that? He’d just heard the story- Simon didn’t think he had left any of the important parts out. “I already- It was. If I hadn’t-”

“No,” Kieren said. His voice was firm, steady, and he glared defiantly across the space between them. “It wasn’t. You had no idea that any of it would happen. Nobody did. Yes, you made mistakes, and maybe that got you into a bad situation at your house that night, but did you push her down the stairs?”

“Kieren-”

“Did you push her down the stairs?”

Feeling helpless in the face of Kieren’s sudden ferocity, Simon shook his head. “No, but-”

“The only person at fault is the one who tried to get her ring. Did you even tell them about the ring? Did you expect them to go for it?”

“No, I didn’t, but-”

“Then how can it be your fault?” Kieren hissed. “It wasn’t. You did not kill your mother, Simon, you didn’t do it.”

Anger flared to life in Simon’s veins. “How is that any different to what happened with Rick?” he demanded, and reveled sickly in the way Kieren recoiled. “Did you know he was going to die? Did you pull the trigger?”

Kieren growled, his whole body tense. “Rick got blown up.”

Simon shrugged. “Fine. Did you arm the bomb, Kieren? Were you there on the battlefield, did you let it happen?”

“It’s not the same,” Kieren snapped. Below, far closer than before, the clouds churned, growing dark and heavy with rain. Thunder rumbled under their feet. “I knew Rick’s dad would hate him for it, I knew he would, but I still kissed him. If I hadn’t-”

“And I knew what would happen if I went home that night,” Simon shot back. “I knew something could go wrong, and I did it anyway. I should never have-”

“You couldn’t have known-”

“There was no way you would have been able to-”

“If you could have-”

“-don’t you think you would have-”

“-stopped it?”

The words collided in the air between them, their voices echoing in the empty sky and fading into silence as they stared at each other. They’d spoken at the same time, the same exact words, and Simon’s breath caught in his chest. Kieren was- Was it possible that-?

“Do you really think…?” Kieren drew in a deep breath, his fingers flexing against Simon’s sleeves. “Do you really think it wasn’t my fault?”

“Yes.” And Simon did. He had only known Kieren for three days, and he knew Kieren had his faults, but there was no way that the young man before him would ever have knowingly sent his best friend, the love of his life, to his death.

“Why?” Kieren asked, desperation cracking through his voice.

“If you hadn’t been caught then,” Simon said, and was amazed at how honestly the words poured out, “you would have been caught sometime. Rick knew that, Kieren. I know he did. He must have loved you a lot to be willing to risk everything for a chance with you, and I doubt he regretted it.”

Kieren shuddered. “You really think so?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I-” Kieren chuckled, and while it still wasn’t happy, it was no longer weighed down heavy with guilt. “I think the same thing goes for you, Simon. You said your mum wasn’t a fighter, but that doesn’t mean she was an idiot. She must have known the dangers of bringing you home, and she did it anyway. She was fighting for you. Neither of you knew that she would fall, but she was still fighting for you, and you caught her. I don’t think she regretted it for a second, either.”

Simon smiled at him. It felt odd on his lips- rather, he felt odd all over. It was as if his heart was lighter, as if he suddenly weighed far less. “I think I want to believe you.”

“I want to believe you, too,” Kieren said, and smiled back. He closed his eyes.

The wind whistled around them as they continued to float down towards the clouds and whatever hid beneath. The thunder dissipated, the silence of the sky broken only by the low, constant churn of the waterfall tumbling endlessly behind them. Even the clouds below had lost their darkness, becoming thin and white and wispy, almost clear enough to see through, had there been anything to see.

For the first time, Simon thought that there might be more down there. This was not the end, he realized. It was only the beginning of Kieren’s world. He had no doubt that the rest of it would be just as beautiful as the man before him.

Kieren opened his eyes. “Simon,” he said, quiet and strong, “I think I know what I want.”

“You made your choice?” Simon asked.

And Kieren smiled at him, and it was radiant as the sun overhead. “Yeah, I did.”

The clouds parted below them, vanishing as suddenly as if they had never existed, and in their place there was a city, vast and sparkling with lights and life. Tiny figures roamed the streets, growing larger and larger as Simon and Kieren drifted nearer. Fantastical spires rose up between skyscrapers and short, flat buildings, and brilliant green gardens hung down over rooftops and sprouted up along roadways. Everything was built in swirls of paint, vibrant and bold.

Beyond the city lay an ocean. It spread out beyond the horizon, deep watercolor blues and violets and striking reds and greens and golds, and in the distance mountains climbed up from its depths, whole islands and continents. Curls of thick painted surf crashed upon the shores. Massive creatures, abstract and defined, broke through the waves and dove back beneath. The water sparkled in the sunlight.

Simon looked at Kieren. “This is beautiful,” he said. “You’re incredible, Kieren.”

Kieren’s cheeks tinted pink, blotchy and bright, and he grinned. “Stop it,” he said, “you’re ridiculous.”

But they were descending faster now, the highest rooftop drawing closer and closer. Before long, Simon’s feet touched solid ground again. He walked to the edge of the roof and looked over, down at the crowds of people below, the ones who populated Kieren’s mind. He wondered whose faces they would have, and he found that he really, desperately, wanted to know.

“Simon,” Kieren said. His voice was breathless, almost giddy. “Remember what you said that first night, when we painted the stars?”

Nodding, because of course he did, how could he forget that, Simon repeated them. “Why not fly?”

Kieren caught his hand and squeezed it. “Simon, do you think I can fly?”

There was no doubt in Simon’s mind. “Yes.”

Another squeeze. “Then let’s fly.” Kieren stepped to the very edge of the roof, teetering out over the empty air, and cast a smile back at Simon, an invitation. “Will you follow me off the edge of the world again, Simon?”

The cold claw of fear reached up for him again, but this time, Simon looked at Kieren, looked down at the city beneath them, and pushed it away. He trusted Kieren with everything he had. “Of course.”

Kieren stepped off the roof. Simon followed him over the edge. And they flew.

Had it not been for the sun, slowly but surely sinking down to the horizon, Simon would have lost track of time. He could happily have spent his whole life there, he thought, just exploring the city with Kieren at his side. They soared through the air, landing on roads and rooftops only when they wanted a closer look, and they spoke to the people of the city, and snuck fruit from the gardens, and wandered through strange little stores and cafes. Kieren told him about the things he had painted, the nooks and crannies of the city that he’d splashed onto canvases long ago, and about the places he’d imagined but never had a chance to create. It all stood there before them, a testament to Kieren’s boundless imagination.

Perhaps, Simon thought as they drew nearer to the harbor, he would become a part of Kieren’s world someday. Perhaps Kieren would remember him as well.

By the time they finally reached the shore, toeing out of their shoes to walk out across the golden stretch of sand, the sun hung just above the horizon. Simon let Kieren lead the way, let go of his hand to watch him step into the surf, and smiled. It was almost time. The sun was setting on their third day.

Out to his knees in the ocean, Kieren turned back to stare at Simon. “Hey,” he said quietly, and held out his hands. “Come here.”

Simon left his shoes on the beach and waded out into the water. It was cool but welcoming, coaxing him further in, to go explore the rest of Kieren’s world. He only wished he could. He grasped Kieren’s hand and let himself be tugged close to Kieren’s body.

“Three days ago,” Kieren said after a moment, “when I first saw you, I didn’t like you. At all.”

Chuckling, Simon gave him a wry smile. “The feeling was somewhat mutual.”

“Hard to imagine we got all this way so quick then, huh?” Kieren grinned at him, but then it faded as he glanced out at the sun where it was beginning to sink below the ocean’s surface. “Simon,” he said more seriously, “you said you would support me, no matter what I chose. Did you mean that?”

“Of course I did,” Simon said. He watched the setting sun’s colors dance across Kieren’s face, gold and red and violet.

Kieren sighed. “It’s funny, but I think I’m going to miss you. Even if you are a bit ridiculous.”

“I’ll miss you, too. You’re incredible.”

Pulling one of his hands away, Kieren smacked Simon lightly on the chest. “There you go again, being ridiculous.” He smiled, soft in the fading light, and his dark eyes danced with fire. “I hope you’re happy, Simon. Wherever your redemption takes you after this. I really hope you’re happy.”

Simon leaned forward until their foreheads rested against one another’s, though he did not close his eyes. He refused to miss a single moment of the young man in front of him. “The same goes for you. No matter what you choose, Kieren, I hope you’re happy.”

“I can’t promise you anything,” Kieren said. He had not closed his eyes, either. “But I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.”

The waves lapped at their pant legs as they stood there, hands entwined, heads touching, silent and still in the water. Simon breathed in and out slowly, not focusing on anything but Kieren. The last few minutes seemed to pass by in seconds, and yet took an eternity. And the sun sank down fully below the horizon.

**

Amy smiled. They looked as ethereal as ever, floating in the darkness of the void, but affectionate warmth radiated off their form. “Hello, boys,” they said. “Did you have a good three days?”

For a moment, there was silence as Simon looked over at Kieren, only to find Kieren already looking back. Then Kieren nodded. “Yeah,” he said quietly, and smiled, just a bit. “It was a pretty good time.”

“Fantastic. And you?” Amy asked, turning to Simon.

“It was good,” he said without hesitation. Kieren’s little smile widened.

Amy clasped their hands together in front of their chest, beaming. “That’s just what I was hoping to hear. You had some rough times there, but I just knew you two would warm up to each other by the end. I’m so proud of the both of you.”

Simon exchanged another look with Kieren. As far as angels went, he thought, Amy was certainly an odd one. “So what now?” he asked.

“Now, it’s time for Kieren to make his decision.” Amy moved forward, floating through the blackness to stand before Kieren. They reached out to clasp Kieren’s hands in their own, leaned in to stare up at his downturned face, and murmured, with all the gentleness of a mother, “What do you want, Kieren? You can either let yourself die and stay here, in your own little world, and not have to worry about anything, or you can let yourself live, and have your second chance. Which one sounds right to you?”

Kieren hesitated, looking at Amy, then at Simon, then out into the void. His shoulders were tense and hunched, reminding Simon of the angry young man he’d first met only days ago. Worry flashed through Simon’s mind- had Kieren been wrong about coming to his decision? Was he questioning himself again?

But before Simon could say anything, Kieren sighed, and all the nervous tension in his body seemed to flow out of him at once. He stood there in the dark, illuminated by Amy’s glow, lanky and relaxed and drowning in his oversized hoodie, his scars exposed to anyone who cared to look, and he smiled, soft and real. “I think I know what I want.”

Amy leaned in further, and Kieren bent down to whisper in her ear. In the empty darkness, the whisper didn’t carry, and Simon waited in silence. When Amy drew back, their expression was serious, holding none of the levity that it had carried before, but they nodded. “If that’s really what you want.”

“It is,” said Kieren. He turned towards Simon. “Thank you, Simon. For everything.”

Simon could only shrug. “I didn’t do anything.”

Mischief glinted in Kieren’s eyes. “Well, you know what they say. Sharing is caring.” 

And Simon couldn’t help smiling.

Amy squeezed Kieren’s hands gently. “Are you ready?”

“I am,” Kieren said. He closed his eyes.

Then, just like that, he was gone, and Simon was alone with Amy in the darkness. Amy turned towards him, cocking their head to one side and placing their hands on their hips. “Now, how about you, Simon Monroe? Are you ready?”

Simon stared at the empty space that had once contained a young man named Kieren. “What did he choose?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Amy said quietly. “It was his choice, though, and you helped him make it. You should feel proud, Simon. You did an amazing thing here. I knew you were the right choice.” It was the same conviction from their first meeting, only this time, Simon supposed, he had proved Amy right.

“How did you know?”

Pale eyes glittered. “I have my secrets. Now, are you ready for your reward?” They spread their hands, and Simon’s gaze was drawn to the particles of light that danced between them.

“Redemption,” Simon said with a nod.

Amy grinned, bright and wide. “No,” they said, “I promised to give you what you wanted. If redemption is what you really want, you can have it, of course, but I want you to think, Simon Monroe. If you could have anything right now, anything at all, what is it you would want?”

He frowned, opened his mouth to repeat himself- he wanted redemption, of course he wanted redemption, what else could he possibly need?- then stopped. Kieren’s personal death, the world he had created, had been beautiful, even before it had been finished, and Simon was curious to know what his own would look like. He wanted to see it, wanted to walk the whole expanse and discover everything there was to see, but… 

He was only twenty-five. He had died with a needle in his arm, with a lonely heart and the crushing weight of addiction and sadness on his shoulders, and with no real knowledge of anything beyond his own hometown. There was a whole world to see out there, too. But in that world, there was also an angry father, and friends who were not really friends, and pain and misery.

What did he want? How could Kieren have possibly made a choice like this?

“He spoke to you,” Amy told him. “He told you his secrets, and you told him yours. He made the choice that you helped him make.” They took Simon’s hands gently between their own. “Now the question is, did he help you to do the same?”

Simon closed his eyes and breathed out. He thought about the last three days. He thought about Kieren’s world, about walking it, about the bugs and the empty skies and the storm and the broken gravestone, about the butterflies and the stars and the river and the city by the sea. He thought about Kieren’s anger and sadness and joy. He thought about Kieren.

He thought about himself.

“I think I know what I want,” he said, finally, and opened his eyes. “If I’m allowed to ask for it.”

Amy smiled. “Go ahead. Ask for anything.”

So Simon leaned in and whispered it into their ear, and when he leaned back again, Amy’s glow was so bright it was nearly blinding. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” they asked. Simon nodded. “Then are you ready?”

“I am.” Simon drew in a deep breath, readying himself. Then a thought occurred to him, and he blinked and looked down at Amy. “Wait,” he said, “are you allowed to do this?” Amy just smiled, raising their eyebrows curiously, and he inclined his head towards the void around them, except now it was less of a black emptiness and more of an eternal expanse of soft white light. “Angels don’t work without the will of God, do they? I can’t help but think that God wouldn’t be this concerned about two simple humans like Kieren and me.”

Amy laughed, their voice a chorus of chiming bells in the light. “Oh, trust me,” they said, “I definitely have God’s will on my side here.” They winked cheekily.

“But-” Simon’s eyes widened. “Wait. Are you-”

“Goodbye, Simon Monroe,” Amy said, grinning, and then they and the white light were gone, and Simon was falling, falling-

**

Simon woke up to pain, pain everywhere, and when he gasped he couldn’t quite breathe. He raised his hands to his face, panicking, and found a tube sticking up out of his mouth, cutting off his air. His fingers fumbled across it, wrenching and pulling at it despite the way it hurt his throat, when suddenly a pair of gloved hands grasped his own and pulled them away, and someone was calling for a doctor, for an injection. Simon sobbed and tried to pull away as a sharp needle pierced his arm. But then darkness swept up towards him, comforting in its emptiness, and he felt nothing more.

**

When he woke up again, it took him a moment to realize he was in a hospital. He stared up at the white ceiling for a long moment, trying to remember what he was doing there. The last thing he recalled was the club, the syringe, the rush of the drug through his system- had he overdosed? He supposed it was likely. But there were other things lurking in the back of his mind, too, strange half-remembrances. There was a boy, he thought. A storm. An angel, maybe? He couldn’t seem to focus on them. The more he tried, the more they seemed to slip away.

“Hello, Mr. Monroe. How are you feeling?”

Simon looked over at the nurse who had just stepped into the room. It took him a moment to speak, swallowing around a dry throat, but eventually he managed to whisper, “I’m alright.”

The nurse smiled, reassuring but tired, and helped him to swallow a couple mouthfuls of water. Even that little bit helped him feel more like himself. Then the questions began, a series of ‘do you remember’ and ‘have you ever’ and ‘would you be willing to’s that he recognized from previous hospital stays, and by the time the nurse was satisfied, he could feel the first itch of craving curling up through his body. He wanted his fix. He needed his fix.

But he looked over at the monitor recording his vital signs. He watched his heartbeat, his breathing rate, the other statistics he did not know how to read. Maybe, he thought uncertainly, he didn’t really want the drugs after all.

“You were very lucky, you know,” said the nurse from where she stood on the other side of his bed. “We didn’t think you were going to make it. There must have been a guardian angel here last night.” Simon made a curious noise. “There was another young man in here last night, too,” the nurse explained. “We didn’t think he would survive, either. But you both did.”

“Oh,” said Simon. He felt like that was important, somehow- another man here, who had survived against all odds? But he didn’t know why. And then he blinked, and even that feeling was gone.

“We tried to call your father,” the nurse went on, “but he’s not picking up. Do you know if he has another number?”

Simon shook his head. “He won’t come.” There was no doubt in his mind about that. He glanced at the monitor again, at his heart still beating away. “Wait,” he said, before the nurse could leave. “Do you- You wouldn’t happen to know any rehab clinics nearby, would you?”

**

Simon had been clean for three years, and, though the old urge for a needle still struck now and again, and he always needed to be careful around anyone he knew could bring him back into contact with his drugs of choice, he was eager to watch that number grow. He was finding passion again in the things he’d used to love, in his guitar and his poetry. He had even found a bit of success in publishing a couple poems in a small magazine, just enough to give him some hope that perhaps he could make something of himself, and that little push was enough to get him to pick up and move on to a new city, someplace where he could start fresh, where his mistakes wouldn’t haunt him.

And that was what lead him to be at the little corner market on an early Saturday morning, browsing the dairy aisle for milk and butter and eggs. Work- nothing fancy, just cashiering at an antiques shop while he wrote his poems and strove to publish- had kept him from going shopping the day before, and he needed some necessities to get himself through the next few days. As he pulled open the refrigerator door, he caught a glance at the calendar on the wall a few steps away, and with an unpleasant surprise he realized that his father’s birthday was coming up.

That was one thing that hadn’t changed after he had nearly died. He’d tried reaching out to his father once, and the sharp, vicious way that encounter had ended left Simon with no desire to try again. Those few days after their brief talk were the closest he had come to giving in to the needle again. He wouldn’t risk it.

But perhaps just mailing a birthday card would be fine? He pondered the idea as he grabbed his milk and stepped over to the refrigerator where the eggs were kept, barely focusing on what he was doing. He reached out for the handle and-

Something tall and bony collided with his side, knocking his basket of groceries out of his hand and sending him staggering back against the chill of the refrigerators to stop from falling over. The basket clattered against the floor, his carton of milk tipping out but thankfully not splitting, the sticks of butter lying forlornly alongside it. Good thing he hadn’t grabbed those eggs quite yet, he thought, or this could really have been a mess.

“I am so sorry!”

Lifting his gaze from the overturned basket, Simon found himself staring at a young man. A young man who would likely have been quite lovely if he hadn’t looked so stricken. Simon blinked at the sight, narrowing his eyes slightly. Something about this stranger seemed familiar to him, somehow, but he was absolutely certain that he would have remembered meeting a man like this one, no matter how briefly. But still…

“It’s no problem,” he said aloud, allowing himself to smile. That was one thing he had been working on, trying to connect more with people, to stop himself from falling prey to loneliness again. Judging by the way the young man offered him a small, shy smile back, he thought that perhaps it had paid off.

“I really am sorry, though, I wasn’t watching where I was going- Here, let me help you get that.” Before Simon could say anything, the young man was crouching down to gather up the milk and butter and pile it back into the plastic basket. 

Simon blinked down at him, dumbstruck, and was hit once again with the feeling that he recognized this, somehow. “Thank you,” he said, when the basket was being pressed back into his hands.

The young man grinned again. “Sorry,” he said once more, and Simon couldn’t tell if the faint pink traces of a blush across his cheeks was from embarrassment or from the way those big dark eyes kept dropping down to look at Simon’s lips. Either way, it was a very appealing look on him.

Throwing caution to the winds, he let his eyes wander, from the pale skin of the man’s face and neck down over his thin shoulders and his partially uncovered arms- and paused. There, stark against the young man’s skin, was a distinctive line of old, pale scar tissue, running from just below his hand nearly to the crook of his elbow. It wasn’t the kind of scar one got from an accident.

“Ah,” said the man awkwardly, following his line of sight, “yeah, sorry. I know it makes people uncomfortable, I’ll just-”

“No,” Simon said, and he startled even himself by tucking his basket into the crook of one arm and quickly pulling up the sleeve of his sweater to reveal the equally distinctive track mark scars littering his arm. “Everyone has their scars,” he said. The words sounded oddly familiar. “You shouldn’t need to hide them from anybody.”

The man stared at the scars, then up at Simon’s face, and then his eyes narrowed. “Do I know you?” he asked slowly. “Sorry, I just feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before. You look really familiar, too.”

Simon shrugged. “I know what you mean, but I don’t think so.” He stopped, hesitated, decided to go for it. “I would remember meeting someone as lovely as you.”

The blush from before was nothing compared to the one that now overtook the young man’s face. He smiled, bashful and a bit goofy, and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not so bad looking yourself.”

Unable to hold back a silent sigh of relief, Simon smiled right back. “Simon Monroe,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Kieren Walker,” said the man as he took it. His grip was firmer than Simon had expected, and his slender hands were covered in what looked to be dried splatters of paint. “I- Have you had breakfast yet? It’s just, I know this little place a couple blocks down, and they do a good brunch.”

“I would love to.” The words came out more earnestly than Simon had intended, and Kieren’s blush deepened even further, if it were at all possible, though Simon refused to be embarrassed. “I just need to bring these back to my flat first. I could meet you there, or- You could walk back with me? Only if you want to. I live a street away, you wouldn’t even need to come up if you didn’t want.”

Kieren ducked his head slightly, still grinning that silly grin. “I would love to.”

“Excellent.”

They exchanged easy, if rather blushy, small-talk as they made their way up to the single cash register, and Simon barely remembered checking out. He offered to pay for Kieren’s items- a bar of chocolate, a pair of scissors, and a bottle of white-out- but Kieren refused. Not even that put a damper on their conversation. The cashier was quiet the whole time, just smiled with obvious amusement and a bit of strangely fond affection as Simon fumbled with his wallet while trying to look away from Kieren as little as possible.

“It’s up on the next street, right around the corner,” Simon was saying while he pocketed his change and picked up the plastic bag now holding his groceries. Kieren led the way to the door, and it was only as an afterthought that Simon looked back at the cashier and said, “Thank you.”

The cashier grinned and waved. “Good luck, you two. Have a nice day.”

Simon glanced at their name tag and smiled back. “You too, Amy.” 

Then he stepped out into the sunlight, and Kieren fell into step beside him, close enough for their hands to brush as they walked, and he started off towards home.

**Author's Note:**

> This was possibly the most challenging story I have ever written, and I still have no idea whether or not it's any good. But I really hope it was at least worth the read.
> 
> Most of the discussion in this fic comes from my own experiences with depression and suicidal thoughts, so if it doesn't match up to your own, I apologize.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read through my writing!


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